The  Moral  Life  and  Religion 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •   BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITBD 

LONDON  •   BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


The  Moral  Life  and  Religion 

A  STUDY  OF  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS 
PERSONALITY 


BY 

JAMES  TENBROEKE,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  McMaster  University,  Toronto,  Canada 


I2eto  gorfe 

THE  MACMILI  AN  COMPANY 
1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1922 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  printed.    Published  October,  1922 


To 

MY  WIFE  AND  SISTER 

THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 

INSCRIBED 


498375 


PKEFACE 

The  following  study  deals  with  selected  problems  con- 
cerning the  moral  and  religious  consciousness  and  is  de- 
termined accordingly  in  scope  and  method.  The  treat- 
ment of  religion  is  limited  to  what  may  be  considered  its 
relation  to  morality.  The  problems  selected  are  of  uni- 
versal interest,  and  require  the  attention  especially  of 
students  of  ethics  and  religion  to  whom  it  is  hoped  this  dis- 
cussion may  be  helpful.  The  point  of  view  is  empirical 
and  largely  psychological  The  exponent  numbers  in  the 
text  indicate  corresponding  notes  and  references  which 
show  in  part  the  indebtedness  to  others.  No  further  bib- 
liography is  presented.  The  sectional  analysis  of  each 
chapter  is  intended  to  serve  as  a  guide  to  the  reader  and 
also  as  a  part  of  the  index. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGB 

INTRODUCTION 3 

1.  The  sciences  and  the  unity  of  experience.  2.  Morality  and 
religion  in  relation  to  experience.  3.  Methods  of  treating 
morality  and  religion.  4.  Supplementary  relation  of  methods. 

5.  The  problem  and  the  order  of  discussion. 

PART  I 
THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CONSCIOUSNESS 10 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER 10 

6.  Moral  action.     7.  Origin  and  development  of  the  moral  life. 
8  ( a ) .  Method    and    assumption.     8  ( b ) .  Relation    of   body   and 
mind.     9.  Degrees  of  mental  power.     10.  Defectives.     The  feeble- 
minded.    11.  Habit.     Entrance  of  the  moral  factor.     Character. 
12.  The     function     of     attention.     13.  Capacities,     needs,     and 
values.     14.  Moral  ideals  and  values. 

CHAPTER  III 
THE  WILL  AND  CHARACTER 30 

15.  Voluntary  action  and  moral  action.  16.  Conditions  and 
forms  of  voluntary  action.  17.  Choice.  18.  Choice  and  moral 
conduct.  19.  Alternatives  in  relation  to  the  self.  20.  Delib- 
eration and  reasons  for  decision  in  choice.  21.  The  most  rea- 
sonable course.  Conscience.  22.  The  moral  intuition.  23.  Im- 
perfect knowledge  of  alternatives.  Decision.  24.  Freedom  of 
choice.  25.  Responsibility  and  "unfreedom."  26.  The  wide  re- 
lations of  the  free  act.  27.  Bergson's  conception  of  freedom. 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL 59 

28.  Rules  of  action  and  the  individual.  29.  Bases  for  rules  of 
action.  30.  Casuistry  and  fixed  rules.  31.  Interpretation  of 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

the  Kantian  imperative.  32.  The  authority  of  moral  imper- 
atives. 33.  The  selection  of  means. 

CHAPTER  V 

DUTIES  AND  VIRTUES 70 

34.  Moral  nihilism.  35.  Specific  application  of  moral  princi- 
ples. 36.  The  implications  of  duty.  37.  The  uniqueness  yet 
universality  of  duties.  38.  The  duty  to  be  virtuous. 

CHAPTER  VI 

GOODNESS  AND   SELF-SIACRIFTCE 84 

39.  Egoism  and  altruism  not  contradictories.  40.  The  organic 
unity  of  society.  41.  The  beneficence  of  goodness.  42.  The 
virtues  as  basis  of  social  co-operation  and  welfare.  43.  Self- 
sacrifice  as  self-assertion.  44.  Sacrifice  and  the  hierarchy  of 
ends.  45.  The  growth  of  altruism. 

CHAPTER  VII 

MORAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  SOCIAL  ORGANIZATION  ....  99 
46.  Self,  other  selves,  and  things.  47.  The  social  self,  and  the 
social  mind.  48.  Social  institutions  and  their  purpose.  49. 
Custom.  50.  Rights  and  obligations.  51.  Interpretation  of 
"natural  rights."  52.  The  function  of  the  state.  53.  Historical 
development  of  the  conception  of  the  state. 

CHAPTER  VIII 

SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY 116 

54.  Attitude  toward  ethical  problems.  55.  Crime  and  punish- 
ment. War.  56.  The  feeble-minded  in  relation  to  crime.  57. 
The  mechanism  of  forces  and  the  moral  ideal.  58.  The  reversal 
of  standards  of  value.  59.  Further  objections  to  the  fulfilment 
of  the  moral  ideal.  60.  The  psychological  relation  of  the  actual 
and  the  ideal  self.  61.  The  logical  relation  of  the  actual  and 
ideal  self. 

PART  II 

THE  RELIGIOUS  CONSCIOUSNESS 153 

CHAPTER  IX 

MORALITY  AND  RELIGION 153 

62.  The  study  of  religion.  63.  Relation  of  moral  and  religious 
values.  64.  The  social  unity  of  morality  and  religion.  65. 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Development  of  the  conceptions  of  religious  objects.  66.  The 
"essence"  of  religion  as  affirmation  of  life.  67.  The  unity  of 
religions  and  the  problem  of  life. 

CHAPTER  X 

UNIVERSALITY  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  CONSCIOUSNESS  ....  165 
68.  Universality  and  supremacy  of  religion.  69.  Religion  and 
daily  experience.  70.  Religion  and  science.  71.  Religion  and 
morality.  72.  Religion  and  philosophy.  73.  Religion  in  rela- 
tion to  human  worth  and  dignity.  74.  Christian  affirmation 
of  human  worth. 

CHAPTER  XI 

THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  OF  MORALITY  AND  RELIGION  .  .  176 
75.  Reciprocal  relation  of  morality  and  religion.  76.  The 
Christian  conception  of  God  and  the  moral  life.  77.  Religion 
and  the  springs  of  action.  78.  The  germinal  character  of  the 
idea  of  God.  79.  The  function  of  prayer.  80.  Religion  and 
moral  reformation.  81.  The  elimination  of  evil  and  its  con- 
sequences. 82.  The  rejection  of  vengeance.  83.  Morality  and 
the  church. 

PART  III 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  MORALS  AND  RELIGION 196 

CHAPTER  XII 

REALITY  AND  THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  CONSCIOUSNESS  .  196 
84.  Implications    of    moral    and    religious    ideals.     85.  Theories 
of  the  objective   unreality   of   moral   and   religious   ideals.     86. 
The  ethic  and  religion  of  mysticism.     87.  Reaction  against  sub- 
jectivity in  morals  and  religion. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  REALISM 206 

88.  Idealism  and  the  moral  and  religious  consciousness.  89. 
Necessity  of  returning  to  empirical  reality.  90.  The  empirical 
nature  of  reality,  truth  and  value.  91.  Reality  and  the  worth 
of  the  self.  94.  Reality  and  the  worth  of  the  moral  life.  95. 
Moral  acts  modify  reality  and  determine  final  issues.  96.  Sal- 
vation and  the  functional  character  of  the  moral  ideal.  97. 


CONTENTS 


The  personal  ideal  is  the  moral  law  of  the  self  determining  its 
place  in  being.  98.  The  moral  ideal  and  the  hope  of  immortal- 
ity. 99.  Reality  and  worth  within  the  religious  realm.  100. 
Unity  of  reality,  truth,  and  value.  101.  Change  and  develop- 
ment of  the  objects  of  faith. 

NOTES  AND  REFERENCES    .........      231-241 

INDEX  .  243 


THE  MORAL  LIFE  AND  RELIGION 


THE  MORAL  LIFE  AND  RELIGION 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION" 

1.  The  relation  of  the  sciences  to  immediate  experi- 
ence is  such  that  its  unity  is  sometimes  forgotten.  Things 
and  events  tend  to  be  regarded  as  forming  a  world  in  time 
and  space  with  its  own  laws  but  indifferent  to  the  presence 
or  absence  of  the  knowing  subject.  Other  persons  are 
known  and  believed  in  as  having  like  experiences  of  a 
world  accessible  to  all.  Values  also  attach  to  things, 
events  and  persons  as  possessed  of  properties  of  affording 
satisfying  experiences  or  as  serving  as  means  to  this  end. 
Conceptual  constructions  seem  to  extend  the  scope  of  what 
is  known  far  beyond  the  direct  apprehension  of  self  or  of 
objects. 

Experience,  whether  immediate  or  mediate,  is,  how- 
ever, still  a  unity.  The  sciences  may  be  classified  accord- 
ing to  the  aspects  of  this  unity  which  each  selects  as  its 
subject-matter  beyond  which  it  cannot  go.  The  factis 
gained  by  observation  and  experiment  in  the  realm  of 
physical  causation  the  natural  sciences  describe  and  ex- 
plain by  the  formation  of  some  law  or  principle  regarded 
as  the  nature  of  the  process  investigated.  Other  sciences 
such  as  philology,  history,  politics  and  sociology,  deal 
with  the  psychical  causes  operating  in  human  affairs. 
Still  others  such  as  grammar,  logic,  aesthetics,  ethics,  and, 
in  part,  politics  and  the  science  of  law,  treat  of  the  stand- 
ards of  value  to  which  the  subject  subordinates  everything 
experienced.1 

The  sciences  differ  in  the  success  each  attains  in  the  at- 

8 


4  j  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

tempt  to  reach  necessary  and  universal  formulations. 
Physics  is  more  firmly  established  than,  for  example,  po- 
litical economy,  while  it  may  be  questioned  whether  ethics 
is  a  science  at  all.  In  proportion  to  its  success,  there  is 
a  tendency  to  universalize  the  principles  of  a  science  be- 
yond the  sphere  of  their  proper  application,  especially  the 
laws  of  physical  causation.  The  abstracted  features  of 
experience  are  made  to  appear  remote  and  impersonal  but 
the  isolated  factors  need  to  be  put  back  into  the  unity  of  ex- 
perience before  their  full  meaning  can  be  learned.  Relig- 
ion and  philosophy,  however,  compel  us  to  take  a  compre- 
hensive view  of  the  whole  of  life.  Religion  seems  to  be 
not  so  much  a  factor  within  as  sustaining  a  dominating  re- 
lation to  the  whole  of  experience.  Philosophy,  likewise, 
lays  the  entire  experience  under  tribute  as  it  seeks  the 
meaning  and  import  of  all  things. 

It  is,  then,  evident  that  reflection,  whatever  its  topic, 
moves  only  within  actual  or  closely  related  experience. 
The  more  we  dwell  upon  the  immediate  experience  of  self, 
the  world  of  things,  of  events  and  other  persons,  the  more 
its  realness,  simplicity  and  yet  depth  seize  us.  No  fac- 
tor of  this  unity  is  finally  intelligible  without  the  others, 
and  we  act  according  as  we  perceive,  know,  feel,  and  will 
values,  in  order  that  we  may  conserve  and  have  more  life. 
Here  thought  finds  its  limit  whose  meaning  it  ceaselessly 
tries  to  discover — perchance  a  beyond  not  yet  accessible, 
certainly  not  understood,  but  in  which  there  is  belief. 

2.  Many  problems  arise  out  of  the  relation  of  morality 
and  religion  to  experience  some  of  which  it  is  the  purpose 
of  the  following  pages  to  consider.  But  what  are  morality 
and  religion  ?  Their  familiarity  renders  their  definition 
difficult.  Perhaps  the  terms  good  and  bad  conduct,  right 
and  wrong  action,  the  sense  of  obligation  to  conform  to 
some  ideal  or  norm,  involving  relation  to  others,  indicate 
the  nature  and  sphere  of  morality.  For  some,  religion  is 
"man's  original,  unconscious,  innate  sense  of  infinity  that 
gives  rise  to  his  first  stammering  utterances  of  that  sense, 


INTBODUCTION  5 

and  all  his  beautiful  dreams  of  the  past  and  future."  2 
It  is  man's  "perception  of  the  Infinite,"  says  Jastrow, 
whatever  that  may  mean.  It  is  the  moral  law  regarded 
as  the  command  of  the  divine  Lawgiver,  according  to  Kant. 
For  many,  religion  is  not  an  instinct,  not  an  innate  sense 
of  the  Infinite,  but  "the  religious  consciousness  has  been 
built  up,  or  differentiated  from  a  background  of  overt  ac- 
tivity and  relatively  objective  phases  of  consciousness.  The 
assumption  underlying  the  problem  is  that  the  religious 
attitude  of  mind  has  had  a  natural  history,  that  there  was 
a  time  in  the  history  of  the  race  when  a  definite  religious 
attitude  did  not  exist,  and  that,  in  its  genesis  and  in  its 
development,  it  has  been  conditioned  by  the  same  laws  ac- 
cording to  which  other  mental  attitudes  have  come  into 
being."  3  These  views  are  examples  of  the  diverse  defini- 
tions of  religion. 

3.  There  are  different  ways  of  treating  moral  and  re- 
ligious experiences,  each  important,  but  only  some  of 
which  we  shall  be  able,  for  the  most  part,  to  employ.  Our 
starting-point  is  the  unity  and  continuity  of  man's  life  in 
adjustment  to  his  environment  and  depends  much  upon  the 
conviction,  which  emerges  from  immediate  experience,  that 
morality  and  religion  promote  and  complete  each  other, 
especially  that  the  moral  consciousness  passes  naturally 
into  the  religious  which  supplements  and  fulfills  what  is  de- 
manded by  the  moral.  These  convictions  are  what  we 
live  by  and  tend  to  be  confirmed  by  the  results  of  our 
action.  Morality  makes  its  demands,  often  disobeyed, 
while  religion  supplements  efforts  to  fulfill  ideals  and 
gives  assurance  of  the  meaning  and  value  of  the  universe 
in  which  our  good  is  conserved  and  established.  This 
confidence  is  more  felt  than  clearly  conceived  but  forms  an 
essential  factor  in  immediate  moral  and  religious  experi- 
ence. Hence  the  moral  and  religious  should  be  viewed 
primarily  and  finally  according  to  what  they  are  in  im- 
mediate life. 

Morality  and  religion  may  also  be  studied  historically. 


6  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

History  aims  to  show  how  the  different  forms  of  morality 
and  religion  constitute  an  organic  unity.  The  moral  and 
religious  consciousness  of  the  race  would  then  be  regarded 
as  assuming  many  phases  in  different  peoples  and  ages. 
When  did  the  moral  consciousness  appear?  When  the 
religious?  Are  the  two  essentially  identical,  or  is  one 
logically,  though  perhaps  not  chronologically,  prior  to 
the  other,  in  the  experience  of  both  the  race  and  the  indi- 
vidual ? 

Another  way  of  treating  morality  and  religion  is  psy- 
chological both  individual  and  social.  Psychology  ana- 
lyzes mental  processes,  including  moral  and  religious  phe- 
nomena, into  their  sensational,  affective  and  conative 
elements,  explaining  them  according  to  the  laws  of  psy- 
chical causality  and  referring  them,  when  possible,  to 
organic  changes.  The  psychologist  is  an  impartial 
spectator  of  subjective  and  objective  conscious  states 
without  regard  to  value,  whether  they  be  the  psychical 
processes  of  telling  a  lie  or  speaking  the  truth  or  craving 
the  satisfaction  of  an  appetite.  It  is  the  will  of  the 
psychologist  to  regard  moral  and  religious  phenomena 
impersonally  as  objects  for  scientific  analysis  and  ex- 
planation without  subjecting  them  to  norms  of  value,  and 
yet  the  psychologist  may  properly  investigate  the  nature 
of  moral  and  religious  values. 

The  philosophy  of  morals  and  religion  has  its  own 
problems.  For  example:  What  is  the  ontological 
significance  of  morality  and  religion?  Are  they  only 
subjective  processes  of  human  life,  the  universe  itself 
being  not  properly  regarded  in  terms  of  values  which  can 
exist  only  in  immediate  personal  experience?  What  sort 
of  a  World-Ground  has  to  be  postulated  to  be  consistent 
with  the  claims  of  morality  and  religion  ?  Is  it  necessary 
to  ask  such  a  question,  and,  if  so,  can  it  be  answered? 
Here  we  cannot  forget  Hegel's  assertion  that  "the  objects 
of  philosophy  are  upon  the  whole  the  same  as  those  of 
religion.  In  both  the  object  is  truth,  in  that  supreme 


INTEODUCTION  7 

sense  in  which  God  and  only  God  is  the  truth."  (Logic. 
Sec.  1.)  If  his  view  is  rejected,  what  that  is  more 
satisfactory  is  to  take  its  place? 

4.  Each  of  the  methods  of  dealing  with  experience 
just  described  needs  to  be  supplemented  by  the  others, 
while  all  of  them  together  are  incomplete,   since  they 
fail  to  embody  the  whole  of  immediate  life's  significance, 
a  large  part  of  which  is  not  cognitive  at  all.     Life  itself 
is  the  true  reality.     Especially  is  the  psychologist's  point 
of  view,  however  important,  an  abstraction  from  imme- 
diate   experience.     The    moment    moral    and    religious 
experiences  are  thought  of  as  personal,  a  realm  of  values 
comes  into  being.     Because  the  same  subject  carries  on 
the    psychological    investigation,    studies    physical    proc- 
esses, has  the  moral   ideal   and  is  filled  with   religious 
aspiration,  it  is  difficult  to  keep  the  strictly  psychological 
point  of  view  distinct  from  that  of  immediate  experience. 
The  same  person  may  successively  occupy  these  different 
points  of  view  and  perhaps  make  the  transition  from  one 
to    the    other    unconsciously.     This    happens   when,    for 
example,  one  gives  a  psychological  analysis  of  a  moral  or 
religious  state  and  then  speaks  of  values  and  of  duties 
that   should   not   be   neglected.     There    is,   however,    no 
ground  for  neglecting  any  of  these  methods  of  treating 
immediate  experience  if  only  no  one  of  them  is  permitted 
to  become  dogmatic  and  to  claim  to  be  the  sole  representa- 
tive of  life.     This  is  prevented  by  recognizing  that  the 
unity  of  self-conscious  experience  is  primal  and  that  the 
sciences,  from  mathematics  to  the  psychology  of  religion, 
move   within   this    experience   dealing  with   its   selected 
aspects  which  philosophy  tries  to  conceive  as  a  whole. 
Beneath  and  through  all  flows  the  life  of  the  personality 
willing  to  be,  to  know  and  to  act  in  response  to  things, 
events  and  other  selves,  and  striving  to  be  faithful  to  the 
norms  of  value  that  emerge  in  consciousness  as  indica- 
tion of  the  direction  in  which  life  itself  may  be  found. 

5,  Jn  the  following  pages,  the  moral  and  religious 


MORAL    LIFE    ATTD    RELIGION 

consciousness  is  considered  in  three  parts.  The  first  is 
chiefly  a  psychological  study  of  moral  phenomena;  the 
second,  in  like  manner,  treats  the  religious  consciousness, 
especially  in  its  relation  to  conduct;  the  third  outlines 
what  might  become  a  more  extended  philosophy  of 
morals  and  religion  which  I  have  ventured  to  call  moral 
and  religious  realism,  and  which  seems  to  offer  some 
hope  of  clearing  up  persistent  problems  in  morals  and 
religion.  Of  course,  this  "realism"  may  discover 
problems  as  difficult  to  overcome  as  those  upon  which  it 
throws  light.  If  so,  it  is  only  another  evidence  of  the 
baffling  complexity  of  immediate  life. 

It  is  difficult  to  hold  the  even  balance  of  thought  and 
not  become  a  misologist  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
bravest  chain  of  reasoning  rests  on  postulates  without 
which  the  whole  fabric  collapses.  Mathematics  has,  per- 
haps, been  most  successful  in  following  "the  secure  method 
of  a  science"  but  it  cannot  give  an  account  of  its  assump- 
tions, and  is  puzzled  to  show  the  relation  of  its  truths  to 
reality.  If  this  holds  of  the  most  ancient  of  the  sciences, 
what  hope  of  final  truth  elsewhere,  least  of  all  concerning 
the  complex  nature  of  moral  and  religious  experiences, 
especially  in  relation  to  that  other  mystery  called  the 
World-Ground  or  God  or  Absolute?  And  yet  "we  are 
even  willing  to  stake  our  all,  and  to  run  the  risk  of  being 
completely  deluded  rather  than  consent  to  forgo  in- 
quiries of  such  moment." 

It  is  not  necessary  in  what  follows  to  examine  theories 
of  knowledge.  Where  there  is  such  diversity  of  opinion, 
there  would  be  little  prospect  of  settling  the  controversies 
concerning  dualism,  realism,  and  idealism,  especially  in 
view  of  the  forms  each  assumes.  Although  mindful  of 
the  views  of  others,  I  refrain  from  their  detailed  discus- 
sion. The!  same  is  true  of  theories  of  ethics  and  of 
religion.  The  limitations  of  this  study  have  made  it  nec- 
essary to  confine  attention  to  certain  problems  of  special 
interest  to  the  writer.  If  the  problems  treated  are  not 


INTRODUCTION 


live  questions  to  the  reader,  I  ask  indulgence  for  they 
are  to  me  in  my  study  of  the  moral  and  religious  con- 
sciousness which  I  undertake  in  the  hope  of  reaching  a 
working  hypothesis  of  life  found,  I  believe,  in  moral  and 
religious  realism. 


PAKT  I 

THE  MOKAL  AND  KELIGIOUS 
CONSCIOUSNESS 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER 

6.  It  is  more  convenient  to  postpone  the  considera- 
tion of  religious  experiences,  except  as  they  may  be  re- 
ferred to  incidentally,  and  give  attention  to  the  moral  con- 
sciousness. \The  definition  of  a  moral  action  is  difficult, 
for  there  is  no  proximate  genus  under  which  it  may  be 
subsumed,  nor  specific  difference  to  be  mentioned.  If 
we  try  to  define  moral  action  by  mentioning  its  essential 
attributes,  we  are  assuming  that  we  already  know  its 
nature  sufficiently  well  to  recognize  it  when  presented  and 
to  select  the  attributes  which  distinguish  it  from  other 
forms  of  activity. 

It  is  usual  to  describe  a  moral  action  as  right  or  wrong, 
good  or  bad,  when  judged  in  relation  to  some  standard 
according  to  which  it  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  done. 
Such  acts  are  approved  or  disapproved,  towards  them 
merit  or  demerit  is  felt,  and,  when  habitual,  they  are 
virtuous  or  vicious.  But  these  terms  are  vague  and  a 
more  detailed  description  is  attempted.  A  moral  action 
has  an  inner  and  an  outer,  a  subjective  and  an  objective 
nature.  The  subjective  concerns  what  takes  place  in  the 
individual's  own  consciousness,  the  objective  signifies  the 
relation  of  the  act  to  some  standard  involving  personal 
relations  to  the  welfare  of  others  and  this  standard 
measures  the  moral  quality  of  the  act.  Analysis  of  the 
consciousness  of  the  agent  shows  that  a  moral  action 

10 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER          11 

springs  out  of  some  need  of  which  the  subject  is  conscious. 
There  is  also  a  more  or  less  clear  representation  of  the 
object  which  will  satisfy  the  need,  the  object  in  conse- 
quence being  viewed  as  a  good,  or  a  value,  and  the  act 
to  obtain  it  approved.  Such  is  the  nature  of  desire. 
There  is  also  pleasure  in  the  idea  of  that  which  will 
satisfy,  and  pleasure  in  its  attainment.  There  may  also 
be  more  or  less  thought  of  other  needs  and  goods  giving 
rise  to  a  sense  of  conflict  between  values  requiring  com- 
parison followed  by  decision  and  choice  of  the  good  or 
value  that  seems  to  promise  the  greatest  satisfaction  on 
the  whole  which  the  subject  ceaselessly  strives  to  gain. 
Then  follows,  in  some  cases,  selection  of  means  to  the  end 
chosen  as  the  good  of  the  self. 

This  analysis  of  the  moral  action  is  not  complete  for 
such  an  act  has  objective  relations  as  well  as  the  subjective 
characteristics  just  described.  The  objective  features 
concern  the  deed  that  is  done.  This  deed  alters  in  some 
respects  the  physical  and  psychical  environment  of  the 
subject,  by  bringing  about  changes  in  the  natural  world 
which  includes  the  agent's  body  and  those  of  his  fellows, 
or  it  may  modify  the  social  relations  in  which  he  lives. 
Subordinating  the  physical  to  the  spiritual,  we  may  say, 
every  moral  action  has  spiritual  consequences  in  the  self 
of  the  agent  and  in  other  selves,  these  being  finally  in- 
separable, and  the  consequences  are  taken  up  even  into 
the  life  of  the  universe  itself.  Who  can  set  limits  to  the 
effects  of  a  lie  or  a  good  deed?  As  Fichte  said:  "My 
moral  will  merely  as  such,  in  and  through  itself,  shall 
certainly  and  invariably  produce  consequences — in 
another  to  me  incomprehensible  world."  4 

The  description  of  the  moral  action  just  given  uses 
terms  among  the  most  comprehensive  in  our  vocabulary. 
What  is  a  need,  a  representation  of  the  object  needed? 
What  is  the  object,  the  "ought-to-be,"  the  choice  after 
deliberation,  the  subjective  and  objective?  Our  first  im- 
pulse is  to  say  that  these  terms  are  abstracted  from  de- 


12  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

veloping  personal  experience  which  is  so  complex  that 
analysis  always  falls  short  of  the  facts.  How  early  in 
our  developing  experience  does  the  moral  life  begin? 
Here  again  we  assume  that  we  already  know  the  nature 
of  moral  action  and  are  able  to  say  just  when  it  is  present, 
how  its  origin  is  to  be  understood,  What  its  content  and 
how  related  to  the  whole  of  human  life. 

Y.  Moral  experiences  seem  to  many  so  unique  that 
only  a  divine  source  appears  sufficient  to  account  for 
their  origin.  Others,  however,  cannot  forget  that  man 
has  in  part  at  least  a  physical  nature  in  many  respects 
like  that  of  lower  orders  of  life.  The  question  imme- 
diately arises  as  to  whether  his  moral  and  even  his 
religious  life  may  not  be  a  mere  outgrowth  of  natural 
processes.  My  own  view  is  that  our  moral  life  is  a 
structure  erected  upon  the  basis  of  natural  processes,  and 
that  a  comprehensive  survey  of  man's  nature,  both 
physical  and  psychical,  individual  and  social,  will  assign 
to  the  moral  life  its  proper  place  in  the  growth  of  the  per- 
sonality. I  shall  now  attempt  to  outline  this  growth,  con- 
fining attention  first,  to  the  psychical  history  of  the  in- 
dividual, reserving  the  more  objective  and  social  consider- 
ations for  later  discussion,  although  fully  recognizing  that 
there  is  no  final  separation  between  subjective  and  ob- 
jective, individual  and  social.* 

*It  is  well  known  that  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  T.  H. 
Green  in  his  Prolegomena  to  Ethics  embodied  this  controversy 
concerning  the  origin  and  development  of  moral  conduct  in  the 
form  that  it  assumed  in  that  day.  The  two  parties  to  this  con- 
troversy were,  on  the  one  hand,  representatives  of  what  Green  called 
naturalistic  theories  of  ethics,  for  example,  Hume  of  an  earlier 
day,  J.  S.  Mill  in  his  Utilitarianism  and  Herbert  Spencer  in  his  Data 
of  Ethics  who  held  that  the  moral  life  is  an  outgrowth  of  natural 
wants,  instincts,  emgtions,  pleasures  and  pains.  The  other  party 
was  represented  by  Green  who  from  the  Kantian  and  Neo-Hegelian 
point  of  view  maintained  that  the  sense  of  obligation,  the  will  and 
the  ideal  of  the  highest  good  could  be  accounted  for  only  on  the 
basis  of  man  as  possessing  a  constructive  reason  who  out  of  hia 
own  rational  nature  formulates  moral  principles  and  realizes  them 
through  acts  of  will  in  fulfillment  of  the  true  self. 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER          13 

8 (a)  The  study  of  the  moral  and  also  of  the  religious 
consciousness  should  be,  in  the  first  place,  psychological 
with  a  due  recognition  of  biological  concepts  on  the  as- 
sumption of  some  kind  of  unity  and  continuity  between 
animal  and  human  behavior,  and,  in  man's  life,  between 
his  appetitive,  instinctive,  emotional  processes  and  his 
higher  modes  of  thought,  feeling  and  action. 

The  moral  theory  of  Kant  and  Green  means  that  the  moral  life 
cannot  be  accounted  for  on  a  naturalistic  basis,  thus  agreeing  with 
Huxley  who  in  his  "Evolution  and  Ethics"  declared  that  all  efforts 
ancient  and  modern  fail  "to  bring  the. order  of  things  into  harmony 
with  the  moral  sense  of  man."  "The  cosmic  process  has  no  sort 
of  relation  to  moral  ends."  Nor  has  the  naturalistic  view  of 
ethical  phenomena  a  sufficient  answer  to  Spencer's  question,  "If 
the  ethical  man  is  not  a  product  of  the  cosmic  process,  what  is 
he  a  product  of?" 

The  controversy  concerning  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
moral  life  still  prevails  but  assumes  a  somewhat  different  form. 
A  larger  conception  of  nature  and  of  man  is  held  and  the  point 
of  view  is  more  emphatically  psychological,  biological  and  social 
which  seems  to  permit  us  to  regard  man's  ethical  life  as  in  some 
sense  an  outgrowth  of  natural  processes.  A  brief  reference  to 
representatives  must  suffice.  For  example,  Baldwin  shows  that  in 
what  he  calls  the  "dialect  of  personal  growth"  the  child  even  so 
early  as  the  third  year  begins  to  be  dimly  aware  of  the  superior 
will  of  the  parents  who  are  to  be  obeyed.  In  this  personal  relation 
to  a  dominating  other  self  lies  the  beginning  of  the  sense  of  obliga- 
tion. In  his  "Foundations  of  Character,"  Shand  would  hold  that 
as  the  body  is  a  system  of  co-ordinated  systems,  so  is  character 
a  system  of  systems  consisting  of  acquired  organizations  of  activ- 
ities developed  on  the  basis  of  primary  organizations.  The  science 
of  character  must  examine  these  primary  systems  and  the  laws 
of  their  interrelations  in  pursuit  of  their  predetermined  ends  and 
their  relations  to  the  acquired  organizations  of  activities.  The 
growth  of  character  is  portrayed  in  three  principal  stages: 

"Its  foundations  are  those  primary  emotional  systems,  in  which 
the  instincts  play  at  first  a  more  important  part  than  the  emotions; 
in  them  and  as  instrumental  to  their  ends,  are  found  the  powers 
of  intelligence  and  will  to  which  the  animal  attains.  But  even 
in  animals  there  is  found  some  inter-organization  of  these  systems, 
or,  at  least,  some  balance  of  their  instincts,  b'y  which  these  are 
fitted  to  work  together  as  a  system  for  the  preservation  of  their 
offspring  and  of  themselves.  This  inter-organization  is  the  basis 
of  those  higher  and  more  complex  systems  which,  if  not  peculiar 
to  man,  chiefly  characterize  him,  and  which  we  have  called  the 
sentiments;  and  this  is  the  second  stage.  But  character,  if  more 
or  less  rigid  in  the  animals,  is  plastic  in  man;  and  thus  the 


14  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

The  psychology  of  moral  and  also  of  religious  expe- 
rience assumes  that  normal  human  beings  are  fitted  to 
respond  to  their  environment  so  as  to  develop  their 
powers  and  fulfill  their  life.  These  capacities  and  the 
environment  are  so  related  that  conscious  processes,  the 
neural  mechanism  including  the  end-organs  of  sense  and 
motion  and  central  organs,  and  the  activities  of  the  world- 
order  may  be  conceived  as  forming  a  unity  which,  how- 
ever, it  may  not  be  easy  to  define. 

Everything,  once  endowed  with  existence,  strives  to 
maintain  and  preserve  itself.  This  I  think,  is  what  is 
meant  by  Bergson's  Creative,  evolving  Life,  by  Schopen- 
hauer's Will  to  be,  or  to  live,  and  by  Spinoza's  "conation" 
who  says:  "Each  thing  endeavors,  as  far  as  it  can,  to 
persist  in  its  own  existence"  which  is  "nothing  but  the 
actual  essence  of  the  thing  itself."  "The  mind-endeavors 
to  persevere  in  its  being  for  an  indefinite  time,  and  is 

sentiments  come  to  develop,  for  their  own  more  perfect  organization, 
systems  of  self-control,  in  which  the  intellect  and  will  rise  to  a 
higher  level  than  is  possible  at  the  emotional  stage,  and  give  rise 
to  those  great  qualities  of  character  that  we  name  'fortitude', 
'patience,'  'steadfastness/  'loyalty,'  and  many  others,  and  a  relative 
ethics  that  is  in  constant  interaction  with  the  ethics  of  the  con- 
science, which  is  chiefly  imposed  upon  us  through  social  influence. 
And  this  is  the  third  and  highest  stage  in  the  development  of 
character  and  the  most  plastic"  (172  f). 

A  view  similar  to  the  above  is  presented  by  Dr.  McDougal  in 
his  "Social  Psychology"  which  gives  "an  account  of  those  most 
fundamental  elements  of  our  constitution,  the  innate  tendencies  to 
thought  and  action  that  constitute  the  native  basis  of  the  mind" 
exhibiting  "human  volition  of  the  highest  moral  type  as  but  a 
more  complex  conjunction  of  the  mental  forces  which  we  may  trace 
in  the  evolutionary  scale  far  back  into  the  animal  kingdom"  (p. 
15,  17).  On  this  basis,  it  is  not  difficult  to  anticipate  an  ethic 
which  shall  exhibit  "volition  of  the  highest  moral  type  as  but  a 
complex  conjunction"  of  these  primary  instincts  and  emotions 
(122-127).  It  is,  however,  with  some  protest  one  learns  that  this 
"volition  of  the  highest  moral  type,"  in  which  the  ideal  is  made 
to  prevail  by  an  effort  of  will,  is  finally  due  to  "the  instinct  of 
self-display  or  self-assertion  whose  affective  aspect  is  the  emotion 
of  positive  self-feeling" — an  instinct  which  man  has  in  common  with 
the  higher  animals  (256,  264). 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER         15 

conscious  of  this  effort. "  5  This  conative  principle  is 
applicable  even  to  inanimate  things  whose  slower  changes 
may  be  factors  in  a  time  order  vaster  than  our  own. 
Each  existing  thing  tends  to  preserve  its  existence.  Does 
not  the  stone  literally  resist  the  hammer  wielded  by  the 
human  enemy?  The  plant  makes  a  better,  more  com- 
plicated struggle  to  preserve  itself  than  the  stone,  the 
animal  is  more  successful  than  the  plant,  and  man  equip- 
ped with  reason  makes  the  best  success  of  all.  To  be 
seems  the  most  precious  privilege.  Once  endowed  with 
existence,  it  appears  as  though  it  would  not  and  could 
not  be  surrendered. 

A  like  desire  to  ground  the  moral  life  in  primary,  instinctive 
and  emotional  organizations  forms  the  motive  of  Westermarck  in 
his  "Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Ideas."  This  author  is 
careful  to  show  that  the  moral  emotions  of  approval  or  disapproval 
do  not  follow  moral  judgments.  Instead, 

"Such  judgments  could  never  have  been  pronounced  unless  there 
had  been  moral  emotions  antecedent  to  them.  Their  predicates 
are  .  .  .  essentially  based  on  generalization  of  tendencies  in  certain 
phenomena  to  arouse  moral  emotions;  hence  the  criterion  of  a 
moral  emotion  can  in  no  case  depend  upon  its  proceeding  from  a 
moral  judgment.  But  at  the  same  time  moral  judgments,  being 
definite  expressions  of  moral  emotions  naturally  help  us  to  discover 
the  true  nature  of  these  emotions"  ( II.  101 ) . 

This  relation  of  emotion  to  the  moral  concepts  is  reversed  by 
David  Irons  in  his  "Psychology  of  Ethics."  This  author  agrees 
with  the  writers  just  reviewed  in  the  attempt  to  find  the  foundation 
of  character  in  primary  tendencies  to  react  upon  the  environment 
in  characteristic  ways;  it  is  due  to  these  tendencies  that  objects 
and  aspects  of  reality  in  general  gain  significance  and  claim  our 
interests.  Emotions  presuppose  these  primary  tendencies  and  in- 
terests and  in  their  turn  call  new  ideas  to  mind  and  liberate  other 
impulses  to  action,  but  the  emotion  is  itself  a  unique,  unanalyzable 
feeling-attitude  toward  some  object  whose  character  and  relation 
to  the  welfare  of  the  subject  is  recognized  as  the  condition  of  the 
rise  of  the  emotion: 

"In  other  words  every  emotion  presupposes  a  judgment  by  means 
of  which  the  situation  is  brought  under  a  general  category.  .  .  . 
Emotion  is  dependent  on  a  cognitive  interpretation  of  the  facts 
and  will,  therefore,  be  'irrational'  if  the  judgment  is  wrong.  .  .  . 
The  conflict  between  reason  and  emotion,  then,  is  ultimately  a  con- 
flict between  inadequate  knowledge  and  the  deeper  insight  which 
has  been  subsequently  obtained"  (P.  16-18). 


16  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

This  conative  principle  is  revealed  in  the  impulse  to 
life  and  finds  its  most  complex  expression  in  humanity. 
The  living  being  strives  to  expand  and  develop,  for  it 
craves  more  life.  Needs  are  forms  of  this  striving  for 
preservation.  Man's  capacities  from  his  sense-organs  to 
his  intellect  and  will  are  so  many  instruments  by  which  he 
is  enabled  to  adjust  himself  to  his  environment  so  as  to 
preserve,  and  gain,  more  abundant  life,  for  so  precious  is 
it  to  be  that  he  clings  to  his  existence.  When  we  go  about 
our  daily  tasks  without  special  struggle  or  acute  atten- 

This  view  of  \  Dr.  Irons  seems  to  be  transitional  between  the 
attempts,  just  reviewed,  to  base  the  moral  consciousness  upon  nat- 
ural modes  of  behavior  and  upon  the  emotions,  and  the  position 
of  Dr.  Rashdall  in  his  "Theory  of  Good  and  Evil"  and  other  works 
("Is  Conscience  an  Emotion?"  and  "Philosophy  and  Religion"). 
Like  Kant,  this  author  regards  the  faculty  of  judging  conduct  to 
be  good  or  bad,  though  it  may  be  modified  by  use,  as  a  primary 
intuition  given  a  priori  and  not  evolved  from  more  elementary 
forms  of  judgment  and  certainly  not  conditioned  in  its  origin  by 
emotion,  as  Westermarck  holds,  for  whom  moral  concepts  follow 
upon  the  moral  emotions  and  are  generalizations  of  the  phenomena 
that  tend  to  evoke  such  emotions.  It  is  also  opposed  to  the  view 
of  McDougal  and  Shand  who,  in  order  to  provide  for  interest  in 
moral  ends,  presuppose  original  tendencies  and  primary  organiza- 
tions of  behavior  impelling  to  action.  Instead,  Rashdall  holds  that 
"moral  judgments  are  the  work  of  reason,  not  of  a  supposed  moral 
sense  or  any  other  kind  of  feeling"  and  hence  have  objectivity  and 
presuppose  mind,  ultimately  the  divine  Mind  (Phil,  and  Relig.  71f.). 
Nor  is  the  desire  to  do  what  is  right  or  reasonable  on  our  part 
derived  from  emotions  but  "may  be  created  by  the  reason  which 
recognizes  the  Tightness"  (Theory  of  Good  and  Evil.  I.  106).  This 
is  quite  in  the  spirit  of  Kant  who  in  the  "Metaphysics  of  Morals" 
(III)  finds  difficulty  in  showing  how  there  can  be  any  interest 
in  moral  ideas,  since  interests  concern  the  inclinations  and  desires 
that  spring  out  of  natural  self-love  with  which  he  contrasts 
"rational  self-love"  which  is  in  accord  with  the  revered  moral 
law.  This  reverence,  however,  is  "a  feeling  which  has  an  intellec- 
tual source,  and  it  is  the  only  feeling  which  can  be  known 
completely  a  priori,  and  which  can  be  perceived  to  be  necessary." 
Hence  moral  ideas  have  an  interest  derived  from  man's  rationality 
leading  to  effort  in  their  realization  (Pr.  R.  Bk.  I.  Ch.  III). 

For  the  Freudian  theory,  see  note  at  conclusion  of  the  third 
chapter. 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER         17 

tion,  we  are  working  out  the  realization  of  our  needs,  for 
these  daily  tasks  bring  values  into  our  experience  by  pro- 
moting well-being.  Likewise,  in  severe  mental  conflict 
and  deep  searchings  of  the  heart,  the  life  we  possess 
manifests  itself  in  the  craving  for  larger  living,  a  striving 
to  discover  the  way  of  life,  probably  because  our  life  is 
a  fragment  of  the  Life  in  which  reality  is  founded  and 
which  has  perfectly  what  we  have  only  in  part.  But  it 
is  too  early  in  our  study  to  make  further  use  of  this  sug- 
gestion. 

From  what  has  just  been  said,  moral  and  religious  ex- 
periences may  fittingly  be  regarded  as  forms  of  the 
general  principle  that  man,  in  common  with  other  crea- 
tures, strives  to  react  upon  his  environment  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  conserve  and  promote  his  well-being.  The 
environment  is  both  physical  and  spiritual.  Man's  body 
is  that  part  of  the  natural  world,  to  use  familiar  terms, 
with  which  the  conscious  life  is  most  closely  connected, 
for  man  is  in  some  sense  a  real  psycho-physical  unity. 
A  world  of  nature  offers  itself  for  man's  contemplation, 
enterprise  and  enjoyment.  The  spiritual  world  includes 
the  community  into  which  each  is  born,  and  whatever  each 
believes  to  be  Divine.  Moral  and  religious  experiences 
are  the  personal  attitudes  towards  this  physical  and  spir- 
itual environment  and  involve  affective,  cognitive  and 
conative  factors  tending  to  be  expressed  in  characteristic 
physical  activities.  These  outward  expressions  modify 
the  physical  and  spiritual  environment  and  thus  each 
encounters  repeatedly  varying  effects  of  his  own  moral 
and  religious  life.  It  is  a  circle  of  relations  whose  center 
is  the  individual  for  whom  the  unique  moral  and  religious 
experiences  are  a  personal  possession. 

8  (b)  It  is  generally  believed  that  the  human  nervous 
system  has  been  evolved  in  the  course  of  the  development 
of  living  organisms  in  making  adjustments  to  the  en- 
vironment. Different  degrees  of  consciousness  have  ac- 
companied this  development  as  means  to  the  end  of 


18  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

successful  adjustment  so  as  to  preserve  and  promote  well- 
being.6  Any  deficiency  of  the  neural  organism  has  a  cor- 
responding defect  in  consciousness.  For  example,  failure 
to  experience  normal  sensations  as  in  color-blindness. 
The  same  principle  accounts  for  the  different  forms  of 
aphasia  such  as  "word-blindness"  or  inability  to  know  a 
printed  word  seen  7  though  normally  familiar,  because  of 
injured  visuo-psychic  portions  of  the  cerebral  cortex,  or  to 
pronounce  it  because  the  auditory  psychic  centers  for 
images  of  sound  which  precede  the  formation  of  words 
are  disturbed.8 

The  above  principle  throws  light  upon  the  mediation  9 
of  impulses  and  upon  thought  processes  involving  the  ac- 
quirement of  meaning.  For  example,  the  child's  per- 
ception of  a  white  object,  as  a  lump  of  sugar,  evokes  the 
motor-impulse  to  seize  and  put  it  into  the  mouth,  the  tongue 
and  lips  being  especially  sensitive  as  tactual  organs.10 
Visual,  tactual,  muscular  and  taste  sensations  form  a 
series  which,  by  repetition,  establishes  such  an  association 
that  later  visual  percepts  of  like  white  objects  have  a  mean- 
ing depending  upon  the  memory  image  of  the  taste  sensa- 
tion. The  mediation  of  perceptual  impulses  thus  depends 
upon  neural  centers  and  association  tracts  making  possible 
the  reproduction  of  the  memory  of  the  associated  sensa- 
tions.  In  its  higher  forms,  this  mediation  appears  as 
thought  and  selective  judgment  based  upon  reasons  which 
are  feeling-values  fused  with  memory-images  of  former 
sensations  and  percepts.  Since  acts  of  will  are  based  upon 
hopes,  fears  and  beliefs  requiring  memory  of  past  ex- 
periences, and  since  deliberative  thought  preceding  choice 
involves  memory,  anything  which  interrupts  memory  such 
as  injury  or  imperfection  of  the  cerebral  cortex  would 
effectively  destroy  the  will.11 

9.  It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  capacity  to  think 
and  will  depends  upon  the  condition  of  the  neural  centers 
and  so  does  growth  in  mental  power.12  In  the  human 
being,  "the  number  of  neurones  is  complete  at  birth, 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER          19 

though  by  far  the  larger  portion  is  not  mature  or  function- 
ally active  at  this  time.  .  .  .  Development  in  the  intercon- 
frection  of  the  neurones  goes  on  indefinitely,  certainly 
with  most  persons  up  to  forty  years  of  age.  13  "  Hence  the 
infant  of  two  has  not  the  capacity  for  thought  and  will 
possessed  by  the  child  from  eight  to  twelve,  while  the  youth 
between  the  ages  of  twelve  and  twenty  has  powers  of 
thought,  affection  and  will  that  prepare  for  and  pass  into 
those  of  the  adult  whose  maturity  covers  generally  the 
period  between  twenty  and  fifty.14  The  psychology  of 
infancy,  childhood,  youth,  maturity  and  age  shows  a  well- 
defined  course  of  development  of  physical  and  mental 
powers  to  maturity  with  a  subsequent  slow  decline.  Each 
is  different,  though  there  is  no  sharp  line  of  distinction 
and  there  are  personal  differences.  The  infant  eagerly 
seeks  new  sensations,  is  restless  and  impatient  and  tends 
to  repeat  experiences,  especially  those  that  are  agreeable 
and  those  that  are  not  offer  enticing  inducements  for  bold 
adventure.  The  mental  development  of  childhood  is 
rapid ;  among  its  important  features  are  the  ability  to  dis- 
tinguish objects,  the  beginning  of  self  consciousness,  the  ac- 
quisition of  language,  with  much  intellectual  vigor. 
Youth  also  has  its  distinctive  features  some  of  which  are 
the  sudden  transition  from  childhood  interests  to  those  of 
the  grown  up.  Imaginativeness  rapidly  yields  to 
practicality.  The  emotional  life  is  in  the  ascendant  in 
response  to  the  new  relations  and  interests  which  char- 
acterize this  period.  The  purely  intellectual  life  is  sub- 
ordinated to  the  emotions,  sentiments,  feelings  and  ideals. 
As  a  consequence,  youth  is  rash  compared  with  the  child 
or  adult.  Maturity  is  characterized  by  thought  and 
feeling  and  the  power  of  intellectual  perception  reaches  its 
maximum.  The  ability  to  acquire  new  facts  and  new 
associations  declines  but  the  adult  lives  in  a  world  of  in- 
tellectual or  emotional  endeavor. 

The  psychology  of  age  extending  from  about  fifty  to 
death  shows  a  decline  of  powers : 


20  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

"Little  by  little  the  variety  of  sensations  and  feelings 
decreases ;  sight,  hearing,  and  the  other  special  senses  either 
become  dull  or  are  lost;  the  emotions  and  sentiments  be- 
come less  vivid  than  they  were  in  maturity;  associations 
are  more  slowly  acquired ;  memory  weakens,  especially  for 
recent  experiences;  thought  is  slow  and  ineffective.  In- 
terest in  life  wanes  and  the  individual  sinks  gradually 
into  a  psychological  state  which,  though  superficially  that 
of  the  child,  as  a  matter  of  fact  differs  radically  from  it. 
The  aged  person  is  childish  only  in  that  the  mental  powers 
are  on  the  level  of  the  child's.  .  .  .  The  complete  history 
of  the  span  from  the  dawn  of  consciousness  to  its  disap- 
pearance from  view  is  a  long  and  fascinating  story."  15 

The  inference  is  almost  unavoidable  that  the  "sins"  of 
youth"  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  "virtue"  of  the  aged  and 
experienced,  on  the  other,  are,  in  some  part  at  least,  the 
normal  accompaniments  of  a  vigorously  growing  body  and 
of  its  slow  decline  towards  death  when  both  the  "sin" 
and  the  virtue  disappear. 

10.  It  would  seem,  in  view  of  the  facts  above 
mentioned,  that  Spinoza's  saying,  the  mind  is  the  con- 
scious image  of  the  body,  the  idea  of  the  body,  and,  con- 
sequently, a  good  mind  implies  a  good  body,  might  be  ap- 
plied to  the  entire  personal  life  including  moral  and  intel- 
lectual virtues,  to  use  Aristotle's  terms.16  Scientific 
investigation  supports  this  view.  Dr.  Goddard  has  shown 
the  difference  in  mental  capacity  to  be  dependent  upon 
neural  development,  ranging  from  the  idiot  with  the  men- 
tality of  the  normal  child  of  one  to  two  years  of  age,  the 
imbecile  with  mental  capacity  of  three  to  seven,  and  the 
feeble-minded  with  the  mentality  of  a  normal  child  seven 
to  twelve  years  old.  Such  adults  have  suffered  arrest  of 
brain  development  resulting  in  a  restricted  mental  capac- 
ity beyond  which  they  can  never  go.  Besides,  primary 
organizations  of  activities  are  not  present  in  their  normal 
completeness  so  as  to  afford  adequate  foundations  for 
character  in  its  more  developed  forms — a  fact,  as  we  shall 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER         21 

see  later,  of  great  moral  and  social  significance  in  the 
light  of  heredity.  Besides,  the  victims  of  arrested  de- 
velopment, injury  or  disease  of  the  neural  centers  and 
association  tracts,  are  unable  to  mediate  and  adequately 
systematize  their  impulses  in  view  of  the  probable  con- 
sequences of  action  and  so  fail  to  act  intelligently.  Not 
that  the  feeble-minded  have  no  intelligence  but  that  they 
do  not  have  enough  to  meet  certain  environments.  As 
Alfred  Binet  says:  "A  French  peasant  may  be  normal 
in  a  rural  community  but  feeble-minded  in  Paris."  Later 
the  bearing  of  this  truth  upon  the  moral  responsibility  of 
those  who  are  deficient  in  mentality  and  upon  the  obliga- 
tion of  society  to  protect  them  from  circumstances  exceed- 
ing their  capacity  will  be  considered.17 

11.  Upon  the  basis  of  the  individual's  inherited  racial 
organizations  of  the  neural  mechanism  providing  for  re- 
flex, instinctive,  emotional  activities  tending  to  preserve 
and  promote  well-being  is  erected  a  superstructure  of 
organized  activities  known  as  habit  and  character  which 
are  the  outgrowth  of  individual  experience.  Only 
slowly  does  consciousness  awaken  and  become  an  im- 
portant factor  in  determining  the  response  to  the  environ- 
ment. The  life  has  proceeded  on  its  way  some  distance 
before  actions  of  moral  quality  are  possible.  Moral  ac- 
tions grow  out  of  the  earlier  activities  as  the  functions  of 
intelligence  and  will  enter  into  the  process,  though  no 
sharp  line  of  distinction  can  be  drawn  and  there  is  much 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  precisely  when  the  moral  factor 
is  present. 

Character  involves  habit  which  seems  to  be  a  broader 
term  of  two  kinds,  namely,  habits  that  are  not  formed 
under  the  specific  guidance  of  intelligence  and  those  that 
are.  The  first  develops  from  random  movements  pro- 
duced by  diffuse  stimulation  which  are  ineffective  as  a 
means  of  adjustment  and  soon  give  place  to  more  definite 
responses  to  the  external  world.  This  requires  elimina- 
tion of  useless  responses,  and  selection  of  the  useful, 


22  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

which  is  not  properly  described  as  due  to  intelligence  con- 
cerning whose  function  just  at  this  point  in  the  establish- 
ment of  pleasurable  18  and  successful  habitual  modes  of  ac- 
tion there  is  considerable  difference  of  opinion  the  details 
of  which  cannot  now  be  presented.19 

The  second  class  of  habits  referred  to  in  the  preceding 
paragraph,  not  sharply  distinguished  from  the  first,  has 
a  larger  place  for  the  function  of  consciousness.  The 
hypothesis  is  that,  in  complex  situations,  old  ways  of  re- 
sponse do  not  suffice.  Because  the  human  being  has  the 
power  of  forecasting  what  will  be,  if  certain  conditions 
prevail,  and  is  capable  of  selecting  new  modes  of  action, 
it  is  said  that  intelligence  enters  and  performs  the  biolog- 
ical function  of  making  adequate  adjustment  so  as  best  to 
promote  well-being.  It  is  mediated  in  contrast  to  un- 
mediated  action  as  in  the  first  group  of  habits,  although 
this  distinction  is  not  absolute.  An  impulse  is  mediated 
when  the  experiences  following  upon  its  expression  re-act 
into  the  original  impulse  to  modify  it.  In  this  manner, 
impulse  and  occasion  acquire  a  meaning  as  in  the  child's 
perception,  seizure  and  taste  of  the  sugar  already  referred 
to.  Whether  ithis  process  should  be  called  associative 
fusion  or  a  more  distinctively  interpretative  act  may  be 
questioned.  Repetition,  neural  habit,  association,  with 
increasing  mental  activity,  result  in  certain  impulses  to 
act  and  certain  objects  perceived  gaining  a  meaning  in  re- 
lation to  each  other,  that  is,  they  are  idealized  and  given 
value  in  view  of  which  subsequent  action  occurs.  In  this 
manner,  the  subject  acquires  the  means  of  forecasting  ex- 
periences, if  certain  conditions  prevail.  If  these  are  new, 
the  responsive  act,  although  mediated  by  meanings  and 
values  derived  from  earlier  experiences,  will  be  more  or 
less  of  a  venture  with  an  element  of  uncertainty  but  will 
be  more  adequate  than  the  direct,  unmediated  act 
would  have  been.20  Thus  man  begins  to  distinguish  him- 
self from  the  animals  by  his  ability  to  deal  with  un- 
familiar situations  for  which  usual  modes  of  action  are 


THE  FOUNDATION'S  OF  CHARACTER          23 

inadequate.  He  is  now  said,  even  exhorted,  to  act  reason- 
ably. It  is  here  too,  I  think,  that  the  rudimentary  moral 
consciousness  begins  to  develop,  although  its  content  may 
be  little  more  than  a  feeling  of  approval  or  disapproval 
towards  certain  actions.21 

There  are,  however,  degrees  of  mediation  ranging  be- 
tween immediate  impulse  to  act  and  the  most  elaborate 
deliberative  choice.  The  thoroughness  of  this  reaction 
of  the  consequences  of  an  act  upon  the  original  impulse 
determines  its  moral  value  and  indicates  that  discipline 
will  consist  precisely  in  learning  to  estimate  probabilities 
by  distinguishing  between  necessary  and  accidental  re- 
sults of  carrying  out  impulses  whose  worth  depends  upon 
the  whole  set  of  experiences  that  would  follow  their  ex- 
pression. Ethically  this  is  the  goodness  of  the  impulse 
consisting  in  the  satisfaction  it  brings.  Obligation  is 
the  necessity  of  modifying  any  particular  expression  of 
impulse  by  the  whole  system  of  which  it  is  a  part.  Thus 
there  are  three  sets  of  ethical  ideas  which  center  about 
value,  control,  and  freedom  of  conduct.  But  these  terms 
anticipate  views  for  which  the  following  sections  must 
prepare.22 

12.  The  selective  character  of  attention  is  finally 
only  an  expression  of  the  individual's  inherited  and  ac- 
quired forms  of  organization,  whether  physical  or  psychi- 
cal, in  response  to  the  environment.  Attention  is  co- 
extensive with  consciousness  and  degrees  of  attention 
mean  degrees  of  clearness  and  distinctness  in  apprehend- 
ing the  content  of  conscious  states.  This  is,  perhaps,  not 
entirely  satisfactory  for  often  emotion  involves  great  at- 
tention but  the  thought  content,  though  vivid,  is  meager, 
or,  an  intense  stimulus  may  produce  such  a  forceful  sense- 
impression  that  it  absorbs  attention  with  little  thought- 
content,  as  in  the  case  of  a  severe  burn. 

The  fundamental  form  of  attention  may  be  called  spon- 
taneous referring  to  the  cause  of  attending  to  one  object 
rather  than  another,  and  meaning  that  the  act  of  attention 


24  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

directly  expresses  some  form  of  physical  or  psychical  or- 
ganization preformed  or  acquired.  The  animal  attends 
to  its  prey,  the  trained  botanist  to  plants.  Voluntary  and 
involuntary  attention  both  involve  conflicts  of  spontane- 
ous, or  direct,  attention  but  are  to  be  finally  understood 
according  to  the  same  principle  of  expressing  some  form 
of  organization  which,  in  turn,  rests  upon  the  ultimate 
conative  impulse  to  life.  For  example,  to  study  a  lesson 
requires  voluntary  attention,  with  effort,  because  so  many 
other  aspects  of  the  self  seek  expression,  too,  and  these 
have  to  be  suppressed.  If  voluntary  attention  prevails, 
effort  ceases,  for  that  special  form  of  the  subject's  organ- 
ization now  spontaneously  expresses  itself  without  inter- 
ruption, that  is,  the  conative  impulse  is  unhindered.  But 
the  so-called  voluntary  attention  is  really  superficial  at 
best,  for  it  often  has  to  yield  to  deeper  forms  of  the  or- 
ganization of  the  life,  as  when  a  loud  sound  interrupts 
our  jstudy,  or  sudden  danger  threatens,  and,  against  our 
will,  we  give  it,  that  is,  the  psycho-physical  organism  gives 
it,  voluntary  attention.  The  entire  scheme  of  life  is  laid 
out  on  the  plan  of  adjustment  to  physical  and  social  forces 
in  constantly  varying  situations.  The  forms  of  attention 
are  selective  acts,  based  hipon  inherited  and  Acquired 
organizations  of  activity,  which  best  serve  the  needs  of  the 
subject  in  response  to  the  specific  conditions  prevailing  in 
the  environment. 

Clearness  and  distinctness  cannot  be  defined.  The 
focus  of  attention  is  actively  analytic,  rendering  the  con- 
tent of  a  mental  state  clear  and  distinct,  accompanied  by 
certain  feelings  of  expectation,  relief  and  satisfaction,  as 
though  an  end  were  accomplished  in  thus  experiencing  the 
content,  with  a  tendency  to  turn  to  some  other  less  clear 
object  allowing  the  clear  and  distinct  to  pass  out  of  the 
focal  point  of  consciousness  as  recognized  sufficiently  for 
present  purposes.  I  do  not  think  we  so  much  give  atten- 
tion in  the  sense  of  one  state  of  consciousness  acting  upon 
another  as  that  a  mental  state  develops  as  a  subjectrobject 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER         25 

experience  to  full  clearness  and  distinctness  with  its  ac- 
companying feelings  of  stjrain,  expectation  and  relief. 
NOT  do  I  see  how  we  can  make  a  given  state  of  conscious- 
nes£  clearer  than  it  is  by  any  so-called  voluntary  act  of 
attention,  for  every  mental  state  is  an  active  process  in- 
volving change  through  time  which  must  mean  that  each 
instant  has  its  own  unique  content.  It  seems  more  satis- 
factory to  think  of  a  flowing  life  that  rises  and  falls  in 
varying  degrees  of  clearness  and  distinctness  of  subject- 
object  states  with  corresponding  changes  in  the  accom- 
panying feelings  of  expectation  and  relief. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  the  conditions  of  attention, 
for  I  have  only  wished  to  show  how  the  focus  of  attention 
is  the  point  of  adjustment  of  the  psycho-physical  organism 
to  the  environment  through  the  aid  of  consciousness.  The 
analytic  and  synthetic  activity  of  the  focus  of  attention, 
with  its  clearness  and  distinctness,  is  the  mediating  point 
between  the  subject  and  its  world  of  cognition,  feeling 
and  action,  and,  over  all,  is  the  dominating  tendency  to 
preserve  and  promote  well-being  whose  highest  form  is 
voluntary  action  and  the  moral  character  resulting  from 
it.23 

13.  The  conception  of  attention  above  presented  in- 
volves the  assumption  that  every  human  being  possesses 
capacities,  which  in  their  organic  unity  strive  for  fulfill- 
ment and  express  themselves  in  consciousness  as  wants  or 
needs  more  or  less  clearly  felt.  Here  is  the  ground  of 
those  conscious  states  variously  designated  as  sense  of 
value,  desires,  wishes,  motives,  ideals,  hopes  and  ambi- 
tions which  it  is  impossible  sharply  to  distinguish  from 
each  other,  for  they  belong  to  a  growth  which  cannot  be 
partitioned.  Men  are  so  complex  in  their  individual  na- 
tures that  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  these  capacities  is  not 
possible.  The  life  impulse  flows  through  the  bodily  or- 
gans causing  them  to  strive  to  attain  their  appropriate 
objects.  To  see  is  the  function  of  the  eye  which  is  truly 
an  eye  only  when  it  sees,  and  it  must  see  to  be  a  good  eye. 


26  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

Each  capacity  craving  its  fulfilling  is  just  so  far  expand- 
ing life.  So  closely  are  physical  and  psychical  powers 
related  that  this  classification  is  a  mere  convenience,  for 
every  physical  capacity  strives  for  its  appropriate  func- 
tioning and  is  vaguely  felt  as  a  craving,  a  need  for  and  an- 
ticipation of  satisfaction  accompanying  its  fulfillment. 
The  term  value  here  obtains  its  clearest  meaning.  Value 
implies  a  need  felt  with  some  apprehension  of  what  will 
satisfy  and  a  motor  tendency  toward  it.  Value,  then, 
exists  in  the  subjective  experience  of  the  relation  between 
a  need  and  that  which  satisfies  the  need,  a  conative  ten- 
dency towards  its  acquisition.  There  is,  however,  a  con- 
tinuous series  of  activities  from  the  lowliest  impulses  and 
instincts  to  the  highest  moral  and  religious  values  which 
are  thus  rooted  in  these  primary  tendencies. 

Many  problems  emerge  at  this  point  for  it  is  not  easy 
to  decide  precisely  in  what  value  consists,  when  it  is  pres- 
ent, whether  it  implies  comparison,  and  whether  it  pre- 
supposes a  norm  by  which  it  is  to  be  estimated.  The  pres- 
ence of  values  is,  I  think,  determined  by  the  degree  of 
conscious  mediation  of  impulses  already  described  which 
will,  it  seems  to  me,  be  sufficient  for  the  sense  of  value  to 
be  present  long  before  specific  comparison  and  choice  take 
place.  Some  hold,  however,  that  there  must  be  compari- 
son while  I  think  the  mediation  of  an  impulse  together 
with  its  accompanying  feelings  is  enough.24  Until  then, 
the  conative  tendencies  of  the  capacities  possessed  are 
only  vaguely  apprehended,  though  they  may  be  intensly 
felt  as  in  the  awakening  that  occurs  in  the  adolescent 
period.  This  craving  gathers  about  itself  whatever  med- 
iation by  associated  experiences  may  be  possible  at  the 
time,  and,  in  proportion  as  it  holds  attention,  tends  to 
initiate  processes  necessary  to  bring  about  the  immediate 
experience  of  the  value  which  then  may  be  said  to  have 
existence.  Values  are,  in  short,  life-ends  which  contain 
in  themselves  norms  of  action.  The  value  of  my  home, 
business,  or  friend,  consists  in  a  certain  relatively  perma- 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER          27 

nent  coordination  of  my  experiences  about  an  end.  I 
work  for  my  home;  its  value  is  a  unity  of  immediate  ap- 
preciation of  objectified  experiences  past  and  anticipated 
in  relation  to  which  I  act.  It  is  not  quite  correct  to  say 
that  comparison  is  necessary,  though  it  may  take  place, 
for  I  do  not  need  to  compare  my  home  with  that  of  an- 
other in  order  to  value  it,  though  in  affirming  my  home  I 
exclude  as  well  as  imply  others.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to 
measure  my  home  by  a  norm  that  is  other  than  itself,  for 
it  is  itself  a  norm  of  my  action  which  in  its  genesis  and 
growth  is  inseparable  from  my  own  developing  life.  It 
is  also  evident  that  the  full  reality  of  value  consists  in 
the  actual  satisfying  experience,  for  example,  of  the  home. 
At  other  times,  values  are  only  postulated  and  believed 
in  as  possible  experiences. 

Still  further  does  the  mediation  of  an  impulse  emerg- 
ing in  consciousness  as  a  need  imply  some  representation 
of  a  satisfaction  that  is  not  yet  but  "ought  to  be."  These 
needs  keep  the  pool  of  life  stirring.  Man  does  not  prim- 
arily cause  his  needs,  though  there  are  acquired  needs  of 
which  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak.  These  needs  are  varied 
in  kind,  from  food  for  the  body  to  food  for  the  soul,  and 
the  need  for  divine  comfort  and  help.  What  is  striven 
for  is  not  but  more  or  less  clearly  "ought-to-be."  This 
"ought-to-be"  is  both  an  ideal  and  a  value,  an  ideal  be- 
cause it  is  a  value  that  exists  only  in  idea — an  ideal  be- 
cause of  a  tendency  toward  an  end  lighted  up  by  intelli- 
gence as  a  value  not  yet  attained  and  hence  striven  for  all 
the  more  keenly.  Even  the  cognitions  of  these  ends  are 
themselves  forms  of  conation.25 

~  14.  A  perplexing  question  now  arises:  Under  what 
conditions  is  the  sense  of  value  and  of  the  "ought-to-be" 
present?  Are  these  identical  or  different  and  how  far  is 
each  to  be  thought  of  as  definitely  moral,  or  related  to 
the  moral  ?  The  principle  of  the  distinction  of  the  moral 
from  the  non-moral  can  lie  only  in  the  degree  of  the 
mediation  of  impulses  and  the  kind  of  affective  and  con- 


28  MORAL    LIFE    AND    BELIGION 

ative  states.  Here  again  the  concept  of  growth  from 
simple  to  complex  processes  relieves  us  from  being  too 
anxious  sharply  to  distinguish  one  stage  from  another  or 
to  draw  the  limits  between  the  animal  and  the  human. 
Herbert  Spencer  preferred  to  say  that  the  moral  is  only 
a  form  of  universal  conduct  as  adjustment  of  internal  to 
external  relations  and  that  "there  is  an  entire  correspond- 
ence between  moral  evolution  and  evolution  physically  de- 
fined." For  others,  the  earlier  forms  of  activity  are  pre- 
moral,  Vorstufen  as  Miinsterberg  says,  germs  of  the  moral 
rather  than  non-moral,  or,  as  Shand  says,  "in  the  instincts 
and  emotions  are  found  the  powers  of  intellect  and  will  to 
which  the  animals  attain."  26 

There  seems,  then,  to  be  no  chasm  between  the  natural, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  moral  and  religious,  on  the  other, 
but  they  shade  into  each  other,  the  earlier  preparing  for 
the  later,  nor  is  this  necessarily  a  chronological  distinc- 
tion only,  for  the  higher  is  implicit  in  the  lower  or  earlier. 
The  relation  may,  I  think,  be  illustrated  by  play  as  it  is  in 
the  child  and,  to  a  less  degree,  in  the  animal.  To  call 
play  an  instinct  is  a  convenient  way  of  referring  to  in- 
herited forms  of  organization  which  may  come  to  matur- 
ity after  birth.  The  instinct  manifests  itself  in  a  series 
of  acts  more  or  less  extensive  that  serve  an  end  which 
promotes  the  well-being  of  the  individual  or  species. 
These  acts,  though  in  some  degree  conscious,  are  done,  at 
least  at  first,  without  previous  training  and  without  clear 
apprehension  of  the  end  to  be  accomplished.  In  the  child's 
play,  native  forces  which  treasure  or  "recapitulate"  the 
race's  experience  are  manifested.  The  child's  men- 
tal state  in  play  is  doubtless  free  and  satisfied  but  serious 
with  a  sense  of  reality.  There  is  some  forecasting  of  the 
thing  to  be  done,  a  plan  of  play  which  at  a  higher  level 
would  be  an  ideal.  There  are  also  some  invention  and 
selection  of  means  and  a  successful  carrying  out  of  an 
order  of  play.  But  why  just  this  order?  Why  play  at 
all  ?  Perhaps  one  may  be  permitted  to  say  that  later  the 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  CHARACTER         29 

child  becomes  a  parent,  and  then  the  meaning  of  the  doll's 
play  is  evident.  In  like  manner  our  earliest  strivings  and 
much  of  our  activity  at  every  stage,  guided  only  by  a 
vague  apprehension  of  what  is  being  done,  is  related  to 
the  higher  moral  life,  and  the  moral  in  its  turn  to  the  re- 
ligious. Everywhere  it  is  the  striving  for  satisfaction. 
The  later  fulfills  the  earlier.  What  were  latent  capacities 
become  exercised,  developed,  and  go  out  to  their  appropri- 
ate objects.  Thus  from  the  beginning  of  our  existence, 
there  is  a  forward-striving  in  response  to  needs  that  grow 
and  expand,  till  only  harmony  with  a  divine  ideal  and 
life  in  God  can  satisfy  the  longing. 

Thus  far  our  study  has  only  attempted  to  show  the 
factors  that  enter  into  the  more  subjective  life  of  the 
moral  personality.  The  objective,  social  aspects  of  moral 
conduct,  though  already  implied,  remain  to  be  considered, 
for  strictly  the  moral  ideal  involves  personal  relations 
and  the  obligation  to  bring  the  self  into  harmony  with  the 
objective  standards  established  by  some  dominating  per- 
sonality or  group  of  persons. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  WILL  AND  CHARACTER 

15.  In  the  analysis  of  voluntary  action,  which  it  is 
necessary  to  undertake  before  dealing  in  detail  with  moral 
action,  the  "psychologist's  fallacy"  of  assuming  a  will  as 
an  independent  agent  must  be  avoided.  Instead,  the  vol- 
untary action  is  the  man  acting;  it  is  an  achievement  of 
the  growing  personality,  a  phase  of  the  larger  life-impulse 
to  preserve  and  promote  well-being,  and  is  of  several  kinds. 
There  is  the  simple  volition  consisting  of  simple  feeling 
and  idea,  and  it  mdgiht  be  designated  as  unimotived. 
There  is  also  the  voluntary  act  which  is  the  issue  of  com- 
plex feelings  and  ideas  tending  to  definite  expression.  An- 
other form  is  choice  where  there  is  a  conflict  of  motives 
understood  as  consisting  of  complex  feelings  and  ideas; 
and,  lastly,  there  is  the  habitual  action  following  upon  re- 
peated choices  where  the  idea  representing  an  end  is  di- 
rectly carried  out  with  the  former  conflict  of  motives  ab- 
sent because  overcome  in  the  established  mode  of  action. 
It  is  will  in  the  form  of  character  and  approximates  the 
direct  unimotived  activity  of  simple  volition. 

Much  depends  at  this  point  upon  the  nature  and  relation 
of  feelings  and  ideas  which  together  form  the  motives  that 
lead  to  action.  We  may  pass  over  those  forms  of  feeling 
which  arise  in  connection  with  the  organism  as  a  whole 
whose  state  of  comfort  or  discomfort  may  be  spoken  of  as 
pleasurable  or  unpleasurable.  Feelings,  in  the  more  spe- 
cific sense,  are  subjective  attitudes  towards  perceptions  or 
ideas.  Such  feelings  may  be  designated  as  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  and  regarded  as  revealing  the  relation  of  the 
object  perceived,  or  thought  of,  to  the  well-being  of  the 
subject  and  thus  the  source  of  our  approvals  or  disap- 

30 


THE    WILL    AND    CHARACTEB  31 

provals  which  in  their  turn  express  the  relation  of  some 
object,  or  act  to  attain  some  object,  to  the  welfare  of  the 
true  self.27  Constancy  in  the  character  of  feeling  will  be 
relatively  correlated  with  constancy  in  subject  and  object. 
If  one  varies  and  the  other  is  constant,  the  feelings  will 
be  different.  The  quality  of  feeling  changes  in  various 
ways  in  relation  to  the  duration  and  intensity  and  the 
habituation  of  sensations,  perceptions  and  ideas,  the  de- 
tails of  which  may  for  the  present  be  neglected. 

Approval  or  disapproval  of  our  own  acts  or  those  of 
others,  now  being  done  or  that  have  been  done  or  will  be 
done,  may,  indeed,  not  be  wholly  identical  with  agreeable 
or  disagreeable  feeling,  since  obligation  is  not  merely 
feeling  however  unique,  yet  there  is  at  least  a  partial  iden- 
tity, since  both  are  grounded  in  the  relation  of  the  acts 
to  the  subject's  well-being.  If  this  be  so,  these  peculiar 
feelings,  granting  the  above  qualifications,  may  be  called 
ethical  and  do  not  appear  to  be  original,  since  they  vary 
with  the  relation  of  the  character  of  the  object  to  that  of 
the  subject.  As  a  consequence,  what  we  once  approved, 
we  may  later  condemn,  and  what  formerly  we  condemned 
may  be  approved  when  better  understood.  Or,  the  ap- 
proval or  disapproval  may  grow  more  intense,  or  lessen, 
or  even  change  into  its  opposite,  as  our  understanding  of 
the  nature  of  human  actions  is  enlarged  with  the  growth 
of  character.  Or,  habituating  ourselves  to  certain  classes 
of  action,  the  vivid  sense  of  approval  or  disapproval  ma}r 
largely  disappear. 

If  it  is  objected  that  the  sense  of  obligation,  approval 
and  disapproval,  are  here  too  closely  identified  with  agree- 
able or  disagreeable  feeling,  it  should  be  noted  that  each 
is  analyzable  into  affective,  ideational,  and  probably  cona- 
tive  factors.  Of  course,  it  may  not  be  possible  for  gene- 
tic psychology  to  trace  the  development  of  these  factors 
to  the  level  of  the  moral  consciousness.  But  it  seems 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  relation  of  ends  that  have 
to  do  with  the  complex  physical  and  social  environment 


32  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

(to  say  nothing  of  a  "spiritual  realm")  to  the  entire  being 
of  the  subject  should,  in  some  manner,  reveal  itself  in 
consciousness  so  as  to  serve  as  guide  to  action,  and  I  think 
this  takes  place  in  the  agreeable  and  disagreeable  feelings 
fusing  with  memory  images  of  former  experiences — a 
fusion  which  obviates  the  objection  that  feeling  follows 
upon  or  accompanies  sensational  and  ideational  processes 
and  hence  cannot  be  a  guide  to  action  yet  to  be  performed. 
Titchener  believes  that  feeling  lacks  the  clearness  that 
sensations  possess  because  feelings  arise  in  connection 
with  "free  afferent  nerve-endings  distributed  to  the  vari- 
ous tissues  of  the  body"  which  represent  "a  lower  level 
of  development  than  the  specialized  receptive  organ." 
"Had  mental  development  been  carried  further,  pleasant- 
ness and  unpleasantness  might  have  become  sensations." 
This  theory,  it  is  held,  would  account  also  for  "the  move- 
ment of  affective  processes  between  opposites  and  the  re- 
lation of  this  movement  to  the  health  and  harm,  the  weal 
and  woe  of  the  organism,  for  the  excitatory  processes  will 
report  the  'tone'  of  the  bodily  systems  from  which  they 
proceed,  and  the  report  will  vary  between  'good'  and 
'bad7  of  different  degrees.  This  theory  helps  us  to  under- 
stand the  introspective  resemblance  between  feeling  and 
organic  sensations,  for  the  two  processes  are  genetically 
near  akin  and  it  is  natural  that  they  should  be  intimately 
blended  in  experience.28 

It  may  be  objected  that  agreeable  and  disagreeable  feel- 
ings, even  when  fused  with  ideational  representatives  of 
former  experiences,  are  not  reliable  guides  in  conduct  be- 
cause sensations  and  ideas,  though  highly  significant  for 
the  subject's  well-being,  are  often  neutrally  toned.  It  is 
at  this  point  that  Kantian  theories  may  seem  to  have  an 
advantage,  for  the  sense  of  obligation  and  the  desire  ac- 
companying it  are,  it  is  held,  "created  by  the  reason  which 
recognizes  the  Tightness"  29  in  consequence  of  which  moral 
obligation  has  an  objectivity  and  necessity  apparently  not 
provided  for  by  any  compounding  of  affective,  cognitive 


THE    WILL   AND    CHAEACTEB  66 

and  conative  elements  that  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  It 
may  be  replied  that  this  view  assumes  reason  and  the  right 
as  the  reasonable,  without  attempting  to  show  what  we 
mean  by  reasons,  when  we  give  reasons  for  our  decisions. 
These  reasons  are  values  which  are  rooted  in  the  conative, 
cognitive  and  affective  nature  of  the  subject  and  these 
elemental  processes  combine  to  form  those  values  so 
weighty  as  reasons  for  decisions  in  choices  after  delibera- 
tion concerning  the  way  to  attain  well-being. 

16.  An  agreeable  feeling  in  relation  to  an  idea  of  an 
action  may  not  be  of  sufficient  intensity  to  lead  to  its  being 
performed.  The  assumption  here  is,  of  course,  that  men- 
tal states  have  some  physiological  counterpart  which  pre- 
pares for  and  may  issue  in  outward  expression,  in  con- 
sequence of  which,  whatever  group  of  ideas  and  feelings 
dominates  attention  determines  action.  This  is  true, 
whatever  theory  of  the  relation  of  the  psychical  and 
neural  is  held.  For  example,  the  idea  of  doing  a  kindness 
to  a  friend  who  is  apt  to  do  gracious  deeds  in  return  might 
be  approved,  but  the  feeling  accompanying  the  idea  might 
be  of  such  a  mild  form  that  the  idea  soon  passes  from  the 
focus  of  attention  and  nothing  is  done,  though  there  may 
be  unobserved  physiological  changes,  often  of  considerable 
intensity,  that  will  form  part  of  the  conditions  under  which 
future  actions  will  be  performed.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  feeling  of  approval  towards  such  an  action  may  become 
intense,  and  involve  other  feelings,  until  the  complex 
group  of  feelings  may  be  designated  as  an  emotion.  Then 
we  have  one  who,  we  say,  is  strongly  moved  to  do  the  kind 
act  thought  of.  The  psychic  energies  are  just  on  the 
verge  of  breaking  forth  into  an  outward  action,  but,  curi- 
ously enough  this  emotional  state  accompanying  the  idea 
of  such  a  deed  of  kindness  may  terminate  in  one  of  two 
ways:  either  the  emotional  condition  subsides  and  fades 
into  the  ordinary  course  of  feeling  too  weak,  apparently, 
to  overcome  the  inertia  of  the  physical  mechanism,  result- 
ing in  no  action  at  all.  That  is,  the  thought  of  doing  the 


34  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

deed  of  kindness  never  becomes  anything  but  a  thought. 
Such  is  the  working  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  those  who 
have  beneficent  intentions,  but  do  little  that  is  beneficent. 
Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  feelings  may  become  so  complex 
and  intense,  issuing  in  an  emotion  of  such  volume  ac- 
companying the  idea  of  the  act  of  kindness  that  the  deed 
is  done  and  the  emotion  ends.  Such  a  process  may  be 
called  a  simple  volition.  As  Wundt  says :  "The  simplest 
case  of  volition  is  that  in  which  a  simple  feeling  in  an  emo- 
tion of  suitable  constitution,  together  with  its  accompany- 
ing idea,  becomes  a  motive  and  brings  the  process  to  a 
close  through  an  appropriate  external  movement."  30  In 
this  sense,  the  simple  volition  is  impulsive  in  its  freedom 
from  conflict  with  other  feelings  and  ideas. 

The  volitional  act  in  its  more  developed  form  pre- 
supposes several  motives,  that  is,  feelings  and  ideas,  in 
the  same  emotion,  and  of  these  one  seems  dominant  over 
others  and  is  accomplished.  This  may  happen  without 
special  consciousness  of  antagonism  between  the  motives. 
It  is  more  correct  to  say  that  the  feeling  and  its  idea  which 
are  to  dominate  gradually  rise  into  prominence  and  possess 
the  field  of  consciousness  to  such  an  extent  that  all  other 
factors  are  subordinated  to  this  motive  with  which  some 
of  them  may  be  implicitly,  though  not  consciously,  in  con- 
flict. This  might  be  called  the  reasonable  type  of  de- 
cision. The  subject  moves  steadily  on  to  the  goal,  the  act 
follows  without  violence  to  any  of  the  different  courses 
proposed,  but  each  finally  takes  its  place  in  submission  to 
the  one  dominant  motive.  In  this  gradual  settling  of  the 
mind  in  favor  of  one  course  rather  than  another,  there  has 
been,  indeed,  recognition  of  different  courses  and  there 
have  been  different  feelings,  but  these  do  not  resist  each 
other.  Instead,  there  seems  to  be  mutual  adjustment  so 
that  one  set  of  ideas  and  feelings  is  lifted,  by  what  may 
be  called  resolution,  into  the  dominant  place  and  the  act 
follows  accordingly. 

17.     Volition  known  as  choice  occurs  in  those  cases 


THE    WILL    AND    CHARACTER  35 

characterized  by  a  consciousness  of  conflict  and  strife  be- 
tween different  courses  thought  of  where  the  attendant 
feelings,  to  some  extent,  neutralize  each  other.  There  are 
also  more  or  less  selective  deliberation  preceding  choice, 
and  accompanying  feelings  of  resolution  and  decision.  But 
the  choice  itself  may  be  comparatively,  though  not  wholly, 
unemotional,  since  conflicting  feelings  tend  to  modify 
each  other.81 

There  may  also  be,  in  the  higher  levels  of  attainment, 
a  volitional  act  whose  effect  is  primarily  internal,  as  when 
some  plan  looking  to  a  remote  end  is  decided  upon  to  be 
carried  out  in  the  future.  Conditions  may  be  added  which 
may  mean  that,  under  certain  circumstances,  the  resolution 
will  not  be  expressed  in  outward  action.  While  this  is 
a  voluntary  act  of  a  high  order  it  seems  to  be  incomplete  till 
fully  accomplished  in  outward  action;  it  is  possible  only 
in  the  higher  levels  of  personal  experience. 

Again,  the  principle  of  habit-formation  enters  to  cause 
a  retrogradation  to  take  place  from  choice  between  con- 
flicting alternatives  to  the  direct  impulsive  form  of  simple 
volition  and  action  where  the  mere  occurrence  of  the  proper 
occasion  i,s  sufficient  to  call  forth  the  act  without  any 
special  sense  of  effort  or  obligation,  for  the  deed  follows  as 
a  matter  of  course.  This  retrogressive  process  is  famil- 
iarly described  by  saying  that  what  one  does  at  first  with  a 
keen  sense  of  duty  to  choose  rightly  between  alternatives 
comes  to  be  done  after  repetitions,  habitually ;  conflict  dis- 
appears, emotion  and  thought  processes  are  at  a  minimum, 
and  character  has  been  formed  because  conduct  has  become 
mechanized  along  what  was  once  a  new  way  of  acting. 
This  fixity  of  character  gained  through  action  according 
to  choice  means  that  one  no  longer  confronts  vague  pos- 
sibilities but  acquires  freedom  through  the  induced  neces- 
sity of  acting  in  a  specific  manner  inherent  in  the  self's  de- 
termination to  ends.  This  conception  of  freedom  will 
be  more  fully  treated  later. 

18.     Further  analysis  of  choice  brings  to  light  the  con- 


36  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

ditions  under  which  the  moral  quality  of  action  is  intro- 
duced into  conduct.  A  distinction  is  necessary  between 
acts  in  which  one  sets  out  to  realize  some  desired  purpose 
without  any  sense  of  conflict  and  those  in  which  there 
is.  In  the  first,  the  subject  acquiesces  in  the  proposed 
course  and  enters  upon  it  directly.  Here  an  act  of  will 
takes  place  realizing  a  value;  it  is  conduct  in  its  broader 
significance.  In  the  other,  the  subject  is  brought  to  a 
halt  and  made  keenly  aware  of  different  ends  or  values 
so  incompatible  that  they  cannot  be  brought  into  the  same 
organization  of  the  self's  activity,  in  consequence  of  which 
a  selection  of  the  end  or  value  that  has  a  right  to  dominate 
over  others  has  to  be  made  before  overt  action  can  occur, 
thus  introducing  the  moral  quality  into  conduct.  It  has, 
however,  to  be  granted  that  no  sharp  line  of  distinction 
can  be  drawn  between  moral  conduct  and  conduct  guided 
by  ideas  of  value  yet  morally  indifferent  because  all  volun- 
tary action  ultimately  springs  from  character  and  has 
social  consequences.  This  view  may  be  accepted  without 
prejudice  to  the  conception  of  the  moral  consciousness 
as  involving  a  recognition  of  incompatible  values  requir- 
ing selection,  especially  if  it  is  remembered  that  one  is 
led  to  this  recognition  by  various  causes,  such  as  the 
difficulty  of  persisting  in  a  course  at  first  readily  adopted 
or  the  bearing  of  its  consequences  upon  the  welfare  of 
others,  or  some  change  in  the  physical  world  which  mod- 
ifies the  course  of  thought. 

In  preparation  for  the  discussion  that  is  to  follow,  at- 
tention should  be  called  to  the  characteristic  features  of 
those  situations  which  are,  at  least  in  the  narrower  sense, 
moral.  Here  is  that  sense  of  the  actual  state  of  the  world 
and  of  the  self  in  antithesis  to  what  ought  to  be  with  the  be- 
lief it  is  possible  for  the  subject  to  modify  one  or  both  for 
the  better.  Here  is  that  unique  division  of  the  self  known 
as  duty  to  an  ideal  contrasted  with  the  present  self  and  im- 
plied in  the  necessity  of  selecting  the  end  or  value  that  has 
a  right  to  a  place  in  the  organization  of  the  self's  activity 


THE    WILL   AND    CHAKACTEB  37 

instead  of  others  recognized  as  incompatible.  Much  in- 
terest attaches  to  this  "right  to  be."  Does  the  subject 
know  three  things,  two  incompatibles  and  a  third  some- 
thing which  is  to  determine  the  selection  of  the  one  that  has 
a  "right  to  be"  and,  consequently,  is  "better"  ?  It  seems 
to  me  that  there  is  no  such  third  factor  or  ideal  of  the  high- 
est good  consciously  present  but,  instead,  a  conative  organ- 
izing tendency  emerging  in  absorbed  attention  directed  to 
alternative  ends  or  values  whose  incompatibility  in  the 
same  self  gradually  becomes  clearer,  while  the  accompany- 
ing feelings  of  "constraint,"  "obligation,"  "approval," 
"disapproval,"  become  more  composite  and  intense  until 
the  one  dominates  over  the  other.  In  this  unity  of  the 
self,  no  factor,  whether  physical  or  spiritual,  sensuous  or 
ideal,  is  properly  higher  or  lower,  better  or  worse.  In- 
stead, "the  right  to  be"  signifies  the  fitness  of  the  part  to 
stand  in  the  whole,  in  this  case,  in  the  self  that  is  becoming 
organized.  This  self-organizing  tendency  is  the  main- 
spring of  every  choice  which  is  the  judgment  of  value  as 
to  what  is  the  most  suitable  form  of  realizing  abundant  life 
in  a  given  situation.  Thus  the  self,  comprehending  so- 
called  physical  and  spiritual,  individual  and  social,  re- 
lations, is  evolving  through  its  choices  in  response  to  "con- 
science" as  above  understood,  in  company  with  other  selves, 
towards  a  fullness  of  experience,  a  highest  good,  which 
shall  be  most  satisfying,  yet  fruitful  of  still  richer  expe- 
rience. 

But  how  and  why  does  the  environment  differentiate 
and  narrow  itself  for  the  subject  to  particular  alternatives 
that  are  real  disjunctives,  an  either — or?  Our  burdens 
would  be  lifted,  our  problems  solved,  if  we  could  only 
transform  our  disjunctives  into  categoricals.  Man's 
ability  to  choose  between  alternatives  has  been  heralded 
as  his  glory,  but  the  inglorious  fact  is  that  man  must 
choose  between  real  alternatives,  because  of  his  limitations. 
We  cannot  have  and  do  everything  we  propose  to  our- 
selves, for  it  belongs  to  us  to  have  only  the  freedom,  not 


38  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

of  a  god-like  nature,  but,  of  a  very  narrow  and  definite 
individuality  for  which  some  things  are  incompatible, 
but  God  may  not  be  supposed  to  have  alternatives,  inner 
conflicts,  and  subject  to  a  law  superior  to  Himself,  for 
He  is  truly  free  in  the  identity  of  reason,  will  and 
action.  Nor  is  a  beast  troubled  with  conflicting  ideals 
and  a  divided  self,  for  the  inherited  organizations  of 
activity  provide  what  is  necessary.  It  is  only  man, 
neither  a  beast  nor  a  god,  that  has  alternatives  between 
which  he  must  choose,  and  ideals  to  which  he  ought  to 
conform,  but  both  are  perhaps  indications  of  his  inferi- 
ority, if,  according  to  Bergson,  the  instinctive  guidance 
of  animal  life  is  superior  to  the  intellectual — at  least 
these  crises  marked  by  alternatives  and  ideals  are 
incidents  in  the  achievement  of  personality  in  which 
there  may  be  a  measure  of  hope  and  comfort. 

19.  The  alternatives  between  which  choice  is  made 
are  directly  related  to  the  actual  self,  and  do  not  leave  the 
confines  of  conscious  life,  though  they  shade  into  the 
subconscious  and  even  rest  upon  unconscious  neural 
processes.  The  alternatives  spring  from  the  self,  while 
the  decision  to  take  one  rather  than  the  other  is  a  decision 
to  be  one  sort  of  self  or  character  rather  than  another. 
Each  alternative,  A  or  B,  consists  of  feelings  more  or  less 
intense  and  complex,  and  of  ideas  of  the  act  to  be  done 
and  its  consequences.  There  is  also  an  accompanying 
motor  tendency  to  give  expression  through  the  physical  or- 
ganism to  what  is  thus  represented  and  felt.  It  is  the 
feeling  aspect  that  gives  the  intensely  personal  grip  upon 
an  ideal  which  is  objective  and  impersonal.  Ideas  as  such 
are  powerless ;  they  enter  the  mind,  flit  through  the  focus 
of  attention  and  may  pass  away  without  being  seized  upon 
as  especially  significant.  The  idea  of  B  is  to  one  noth- 
ing, to  another  all  important.  If  a  strong  feeling-tone 
accompanies  the  idea  of  B,  the  case  is  serious.  Ideas 
receive  more  or  less  of  a  backing  from  the  feelings  which 
are  a  token  of  the  value  of  the  object  thought  of  to  the 


THE    WILL   AND    CHARACTER  39 

subject's  wjell-being.  Whether  an  idea  is  ever  totally 
without  some  feeling-tone  of  the  original  sensation  or  per- 
ception persisting  in  its  ideal  revival,  or  arising  independ- 
ently in  connection  with  the  ideational  process  as  an  ac- 
tivity directed  toward  an  end,32  may  be  questioned, 
though  I  should  think  that  ideas  might  be  neutral,  since 
sensations  and  perceptions  are  said  to  be  sometimes  neu- 
trally toned  or  indifferent.  However  this  may  be,  the 
feelings  accompanying  ideas  may,  with  sufficient  intensity, 
break  forth  into  overt  action  and  the  psychic  and  physical 
energy  will  go  into  the  act.  Then  the  fully  developed 
volition  is  accomplished  in  the  external  world.  But,  before 
this  occurs,  there  are  only  feelings  related  to  ideas  of 
courses  of  action  that  might  be  followed,  that  is  to  say, 
desires,  motives,  or  springs  of  action.  It  does  not  es- 
pecially matter  as  to  the  term  used,  if  it  is  remembered 
that  the  feelings  are  -subjective  attitudes  of  valuation 
towards  ideally  represented  courses  of  action  directed 
towards  ends  that  have  to  do  with  well-being  accompanied 
by  the  motor-tendency  to  do  these  acts  which  are  out- 
wardly accomplished  when  some  one  set  of  these  feelings 
and  ideas  becomes  dominant.  The  desire,  the  motive  to 
action,  therefore,  and  the  final  meaning  of  choice,  are 
grounded  in  the  striving  for  satisfaction  and  fulfillment  of 
the  self's  capacities  in  a  developing  environment.  Con- 
sequently, the  choice  between  alternatives  is  really  be- 
tween complex  groups  of  desires  mutually  re-enforcing 
each  other  within  the  unity,  or  between  incompatible 
kinds,  of  self. 

It  is  now  possible  to  state,  at  least  formally,  what  the 
highest  good  is,  for  as  Socrates  said,  "the  answer  is  rolling 
at  our  feet."  If  the  subject  may  be  supposed  to  reflect 
upon  the  various  desires  that  rise  spontaneously  from  orig- 
inal and  acquired  capacities  striving  for  their  appro- 
priate functioning,  he  will  gradually  become  aware  of 
the  idea  of  a  good  on  the  whole  looking  to  the  fulfill- 
ment of  as  many  of  the  capacities  of  the  self  as 


40  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

possible  in  every  act.33  If,  as  Taylor  believes,34  this 
idea  of  the  highest  good  on  the  whole  is  not  nec- 
essarily present  in  choice,  I  think  it  represents  the 
motive-spring  of  every  selective  decision  which,  there- 
fore, seeks  to  reach  the  most  comprehensive  satisfaction 
of  life's  needs  possible  in  a  given  situation,  and  the  deci- 
sions is  just  the  judgment  of  what  the  best  good  of  the 
self  is  in  the  circumstances.  Later  one  may  come  to  see 
in  a  new  light  that  what  he  formerly  took  as  his  personal 
good  was  evil,  for  the  deed  will  then  be  revealed  in  its 
real  character.  Here  are  the  bitterness  of  sin  and,  at 
the  same  time,  self-condemnation  and  the  beginning  of 
repentance  in  awakening  to  the  fact  that  one  is  such  a 
self  as  to  have  taken  evil  as  the  self's  good,  or,  as  it  is 
said,  in  order  to  "conversion,"  there  must  first  be  con- 
viction of  sin.  In  this  sense,  evil  is  necessary  to  good 
in  an  individual's  or  a  people's  development.  Savage 
morality  can  be  condemned  only  in  contrast  with  the 
moral  standards  of  civilized  life.  "Evil  is  therefore  not 
the  abstract  opposite  of  good,  but  a  lower  stage  of  good" 
through  which  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  passes  towards 
its  fulfillment.35  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  increasing 
satisfaction  accompanying  choices  that  tend  to  develop 
ideals  of  action  and,  when  accomplished,  do  really  pro- 
mote personal  and  social  welfare. 

It  is  now  evident  that  in  choice  is  revealed  the  func- 
tional significance  of  intelligent  self-direction  by  the  for- 
mation of  a  judgment  as  to  what  is  required  in  a  given 
situation,  for  which  original,  or  habitual  acquired  organ- 
izations of  activity  are  inadequate.  It  is,  I  think,  what 
Kant  meant  by  the  autonomy  of  the  rational  will,  when  he 
says:  "We  have  at  last  succeeded  in  reducing  the  true 
conception  of  morality  to  the  idea  of  freedom  which  is  de- 
termined to  action  by  no  cause  other  than  itself."  It  is 
just  the  self  as  rational  working  out  its  own  true  self- 
hood. This  is  morality.86 

20.     Deliberation  examines  the  incompatible  courses, 


THE    WILL   AND    CHARACTER  41 

by  which  the  subject  is  halted,  in  order  to  discover  rea- 
sons for  choosing  one  rather  than  the  other.  One  might 
conceivably  both  reject  A  and  refuse  B,  but,  in  view 
of  what  the  self  is  and  is  becoming,  these  incompatibles 
are  practically  contradictories  so  that  to  refuse  E  is  to 
adopt  A.  The  presupposition,  of  course,  is  that  the  entire 
system  of  relations  has  specialized  itself  into  just  these 
alternatives  or  incompatibles  before  which  the  self 
stands  critically  examining  them  to  discover  reasons  for 
adopting  one  rather  than  the  other  as  fit  to  be  incorporated 
into  the  unity  of  the  growing  self.  This  analytic  act 
also  reveals  the  character  of  the  agent  which  settles  what 
will  come  into  mind  as  a  reason  to  be  heeded  in  the  delib- 
eration ;  indeed,  as  Aristotle  says :  "If  a  man  be  in  any 
sense  whatever  responsible  for  his  moral  condition,  in  that 
same  sense  will  he  also  be  responsible  for  his  conception 
of  the  true  end."  3T  If  one's  character  is  beneficent  and 
benevolent,  reasons  that  have  to  do  with  the  welfare  of 
others  will  assume  importance  in  decision.  The  mood 
in  which  one  is,  the  emotional  condition  prevailing,  will 
determine  what  is  thought  of.  If  one  is  sorrowful,  ideas 
harmonizing  with  this  mood  will  come  into  mind  rather 
than  ideas  that  are  associates  of  cheerful  moods.  If  one 
has  wealth,  there  is  apt  to  be  a  sense  of  security  resting 
upon  possessions  rather  than  upon  effort  of  will  to  attain 
a  larger  self -hood  leading  to  indifferent  reflection ;  if  there 
is  poverty,  the  sense  of  being  unable  through  lack  of  means 
to  carry  out  purposes  will  inhibit  reflection  and  so,  in  each 
case,  as  Plato  says,38  both  wealth  and  poverty  are  equally 
causes  of  self-deterioration. 

But  what  is  a  reason  when  we  give  a  reason  for  our  de- 
cision ?  The  above  principle  helps  us  to  reply.  A  reason 
is  just  one  of  these  unities  of  feeling  and  idea  which  arise 
in  connection  with  some  need  that  springs  spontaneously 
out  of  the  self  as  both  body  and  mind,  presupposing  some 
mediation  of  the  impulse  through  former  experience. 
More  briefly,  a  reason  is  a  value  that  the  self  recognizes 


42  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

and  appreciates,  indeed,  constitutes.  But  why  is  it  a 
value?  Because  it  goes  back  into  the  primary  and  ac- 
quired tendencies  of  the  self  including  the  instinctive, 
emotional  and  habitual,  in  brief,  into  psycho-physical  pre- 
dispositions, partly  inherited,  partly  acquired.  Nothing 
is  a  reason  in  a  pure,  abstract,  impersonal  sense,  for  the 
ideal  content  of  value  in  order  to  be  a  value  is  made  to 
glow  with  life  by  the  feeling  akin  to  agreeableness,  ex- 
pressing the  relation  of  the  object  thought  of  to  the  self's 
well-being,  or  to  the  whole  system  of  the  self.  A  reason 
for  decision  is,  therefore,  a  value  determined  by  the  self 
as  the  complex  of  psycho-physical  organizations  and  dis- 
positions. But  comparison  39  is  not,  I  think,  necessary 
to  the  sense  of  value  for  values  must  be  already  recog- 
nized as  present  in  order  to  weigh  in  the  comparison  of 
alternatives  and  serve  as  reasons  for  deciding  in  favor  of 
one  rather  than  the  other.  It  is,  however,  true  that  valua- 
tion may  be  enhanced  in  clearness  of  content  during  a 
comparison  of  alternatives.  But  the  sense  of  value  passes 
through  various  changes  due  to  fluctuations  in  the  quantity 
and  quality  of  the  emotional  attendants  of  the  ideal  con- 
tent, as  in  the  case  of  the  volunteer  soldier  yielding  obe- 
dience to  patriotism  as  against  the  claims  of  family.  In 
the  final  decision,  the  emotional  element  subsides,  indeed, 
yet  acquires  a  potential  strength  which  it  did  not  have 
before,  for  the  decision  establishes  one  alternative  as  the 
self  that  is  to  be,  while  the  other  may  be  strongly  felt 
but  no  longer  viewed  as  possible  yet  contributing  to  an 
undercurrent  of  life  that  will  be  encountered  in  later 
deliberations. 

Instead  of  comparisons  being  necessary  to  the  sense  of 
value  in  reaching  decisions,  it  seems  more  like  the  up- 
springing  of  a  fountain  in  two  or  more  streams  one  of 
which  gradually  becomes  greater  in  volume,  while  the 
others  either  become  less  or  disappear.  In  like  manner, 
the  life-stream  which  was  flowing  in  two  or  more  ways,  or 
alternatives,  finally  flows  in  only  one.  It  is  the  source  of 


THE    WILL    AND    CHARACTER  43 

the  stream,  the  upspringing  fountain  of  life,  that  counts. 

21.  Deliberation  assumes  that,  when  there  is  a  con- 
flict of  values,  there  not  only  is  a  most  reasonable  course 
but  that  it  may  become  known.  The  assumption  is  im- 
portant for  it  means  the  Best,  as  Plato  said,  the  Highest 
Reason  which  may  be  no  merely  logical  reason.  The 
decision  is  finally  ontological.  But  wbat  is  the  most 
reasonable  course  and  how  is  it  discovered?  The  most 
reasonable  course  is  that  which  affords  the  widest  and 
completest  realization  of  the  true  self  striving  to  become 
actual  through  the  elimination  of  tendencies  that  narrow 
and  inhibit,  and  the  exercise  of  powers  in  relation  to 
their  appropriate  objects,  thereby  enabling  the  self  to 
meet  the  demands  that  arise  from  within  and  from  re- 
lations to  the  community. 

The  determination  of  the  manner  in  which  the  most 
reasonable  course  becomes  evident  may  now  be  under- 
taken. It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  the  agent  knows 
it  because  he  so  strongly  approves  one  alternative  rather 
than  another.  Why  the  strong  approval  ?  The  popular 
way  is  to  say  that  conscience  directly  reveals  what  shall 
be  done,  which  is  true,  but  this  only  obliges  us  to  settle 
what  we  mean  by  conscience.  Only  a  review  of  the  his- 
tory of  ethical  theories  would  suffice  to  make  clear  its 
various  meanings.  The  authority  of  conscience  and  its 
right  to  command,  apparently  underived,  seem  so  myste- 
rious that  from  Socrates  to  the  present  many  identify 
conscience  with  the  voice  of  God.  Others,  like  Shaftes- 
bury  and  Hutcheson,  after  the  analogy  of  a  sense  organ, 
think  of  conscience  as  an  inner  sense  that  directly  reveals 
the  moral  quality  of  voluntary  actions.  Still  others  give 
it  a  naturalistic  interpretation  in  terms  of  pleasurable  and 
unpleasurable  feelings  and  the  instinct  of  sympathy. 
These  naturalistic  theories  assume  various  forms  from 
Hume  and  Adam  Smith  to  Mill  and  Spencer.  There  are 
also  different  kinds  of  rational  intuitionism  as  to  right 
and  wrong.  Such  an  intuition  is  held  to  be  original  and 


44  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

underived  from  any  source  but  the  pure  rational  nature 
itself.  Even  if  an  empirical  element  is  admitted,  as  per- 
haps the  critic  would  hold  is  the  case  with  SidgwicFs  two 
propositions,  "I  ought  not  to  prefer  a  present  lesser  good 
to  a  future  greater  good,"  and  "I  ought  not  to  prefer  my 
own  lesser  good  to  the  greater  good  of  another,"  40  it  is  said 
that  the  final  recognition  of  the  highest,  most  rational, 
course  of  action  is  an  intuition.  These  types  of  ethical 
theories  have  representatives  from  Ealph  Cudworth 
(1617-1688)  and  Samuel  Clarke  (1675-1729)  to  Kant 
(1724-1804).  Even  those  who  have  Hegelian  tenden- 
cies and  admit  an  empirical  unfolding  of  the  rational 
nature  in  a  social  order  as  the  realization  of  the  idea  of 
freedom  fall  back  upon  an  intuitive  recognition  "that  the 
good  of  another  must  be  immediately  accepted  by  a  clear 
thinker  as  objectively  good  and  that  this  acceptance  is 
the  obligation  which  may  or  ought  to  lead  to  action,  quite 
apart  from  the  pleasure  felt  by  the  agent  in  such  ac- 
tions." 41 

22.  The  above  explanations  of  the  discovery  of  the  best 
course  to  be  adopted  seem  to  leave  something  unexplained. 
Why  does  one  so  confidently  affirm  that  what  he  approves 
as  right  and  good  ought  to  prevail  over  some  present  im- 
pulse in  another  direction?  Why  should  the  intuition 
be  followed?  Does  this  confidence  imply  perfect  trust 
in  our  approvals  and  disapprovals  of  what  we  seem  intui- 
tively to  know  to  be  good  or  evil,  or  is  there  an  element  of 
uncertainty  ? 

Conscience,  declaring  immediately  what  should  be  done, 
seems  to  have  the  nature  of  something  external  to  the 
agent,  whereas  morality  properly  requires  free  obedience 
to  a  self  imposed  law.  A  similar  difficulty  is  encount- 
ered, if  it  is  true,  as  Muirhead  says,  that  "the  elements 
of  feeling  and  judgment  may  stand  in  contradiction  to  one 
another,"  42  and  that  there  may  be  intellectual  approval  of 
a  course  of  action  as  right  and  good  accompanied  by  a  feel- 
ing closely  resembling  remorse.  This  again  makes  the 


THE    WILL    AND    CHAEACTEE  45 

approval  or  disapproval  of  conscience  appear  external 
to  the  agent.  But,  I  think,  there  is  no  such  contradiction 
between  the  feelings  and  the  judgment,  or  between  the  self 
and  the  intuitions  of  conscience.  What  is  "intellectual 
approval"  but  a  judgment  accompanied  by  a  feeling  of  a 
certain  quality?  The  real  question  is,  then,  what  is  the 
relation  of  this  feeling  in  the  approval  to  the  feeling  that 
seems  to  stand  in  contradiction,  as  Muirhead  says,  to  the 
judgment?  It  is  not  sufficient  to  say  that  feeling  is 
the  conservative  and  reason  the  radical  and  revolutionary 
element  in  life,  for  I  think  it  necessary  to  hold  to  the 
unity  of  the  feeling  and  judging  elements  of  conscience  in 
the  light  of  which  the  apparent  contradiction  of  feeling 
and  judgment  is  due  to  the  lack  of  what  may  be  called  a 
realizing  sense  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the  judgment 
about  the  new  and  untried.43  This  judgment  of  con- 
science is  not  always  knowledge,  though  it  wears  its  garb. 
We  do  not  really  know  that  the  course  of  action  intellect- 
ually approved  is  what  it  is  claimed  to  be,  for  such  judg- 
ment is  more  like  a  postulate  whose  full  acceptance  as 
knowledge  follows  rather  than  precedes  verification  in 
practice,  when  it  will  become  a  necessity  of  life.  This 
was,  I  believe,  Socrates'  meaning  when  he  said  he  could 
not  conceive  a  man  knowing  the  good  and  not  doing  it. 
Approval  or  disapproval  is  implicit  action,  and  we  have 
seen  that  voluntary  action  is  the  idea  of  an  act  impelled 
to  realization  through  strong  emotional  energy  from  whose 
motor  tendency  the  act  follows.  Of  course,  the  emotional 
state  may  give  place  to  ordinary  feeling  or  be  insufficient 
to  overcome  the  inertia  of  the  physical  mechanism  and, 
in  either  case,  the  act  would  not  be  done.  But  I  am 
inclined  to  say  that  we  do  not  really  know  till  we  feel  it, 
nor  do  we  feel  it  till  we  know  and,  therefore,  as  Socrates 
said,  when  a  man  knows  the  good  he  will  do  it.  Such  a 
knowing  is  a  realizing  sense  of  the  act  in  its  relation  to 
the  self  and  others  which  makes  it  identical  with  action. 
So  important  are  the  above  principles  that  I  venture  to 


46  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

illustrate  them.  A  mother  approved  her  son's  enlistment 
and  departure  for  the  battle-front.  But  the  mother-love 
was  against  what  seemed  to  be  right.  Now,  I  hold  that 
this  conflict  of  feelings  means  a  lack  of  knowledge  that  the 
intellectually  approved  course  is  right  and  the  knowledge 
cannot  be  gained  until  the  entire  significance  of  the  se- 
quel of  the  act  is  experienced.  The  intellectual  approval 
or  judgment  is  here  only  a  postulate  with  an  element  of 
doubt  and  reservation.  If  the  mother  could. have  a  real- 
izing sense,  a  full  knowledge,  that  her  son's  departure 
was  both  right  and  the  best  good  for  her  son,  herself  and 
the  world,  the  mother-love  would  act  without  regret. 

Another  illustration  may  be  an  instance  of  the  writer's 
own  experience  in  which  a  certain  course  of  action  pre- 
sented itself  to  be  adopted  or  rejected.  Even  to  do  noth- 
ing was  very  much  of  a  positive  decision.  Feelings  and 
thoughts,  with  ceaseless  striving,  were  intense  and  vivid. 
Both  alternatives  seemed  to  be  possible;  both  involved 
difficulties  and  each  was  sure  to  have  far-reaching  con- 
sequences for  himself  and  others,  even  modifying  the  ma- 
terial world.  Each  alternative  seemed  to  have  a  large 
element  of  obligation  in  its  favor,  but  one  seemed  imme- 
diately much  harder,  though  it  was  difficult  to  decide 
whether  this  immediate  hardness  was  greater  than  the 
hardness  the  other  would  finally  have,  for  the  full  con- 
sequences of  both  were  unknown,  the  fear  of  which  was 
doubtless  a  large  element  in  the  difficulty  experienced. 
But  the  harder  alternative  was  regarded  with  a  peculiar 
satisfaction  as  something  that  he  would  like  to  do,  al- 
though he  would  like  to  do  the  other.  Still  harder  it 
seemed  that  both  courses  of  action  could  not  be  followed 
at  the  same  time  which  was  an  evidence  of  personal  limita- 
tion which  gave  to  the  two  alternatives  the  force  of  con- 
tradictories. But  when  to  do,  and  how,  were  for  a  long 
time  left  indefinite  which  permitted  pleasure  in  contem- 
plating the  proposal  to  do  the  act  that  had  somehow  be- 
come the  harder  and  yet  more  obligatory,  and  the  pleasure 


THE    WILL   AlTD    CHARACTER  47 

of  this  contemplation  tended  to  postpone  doing  it,  the  con- 
soling assurance  that  it  would  be  done  making  up  for  lack 
of  satisfaction  in  actually  doing  it,  thus  tending  to  in- 
hibit action.  When  at  last  the  immediately  harder  al- 
ternative was  decided  upon  and  actually  done,  there  was 
a  certain  collapse  and  sinking  of  feeling  as  though  this 
immediately  harder  alternative  were  a  loss,  a  venture 
whose  immediate  and  remote  consequences  were  unknown 
and  feared.  Certainly  all  that  the  rejected  alternative 
represented  was  forever  impossible  nor  was  it  clear  that 
it  was  less  obligatory  than  the  one  that  seemed  harder. 
Nor  was  the  sense  of  obligation  to  take  the  harder  al- 
ternative made  any  clearer  by  the  decision  and  action, 
for  there  was  still  doubt  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  choice. 
The  deed  was  literally  committed  to  the  order  of  things  as 
the  next  move  in  the  game  of  life  with  the  feeling  of  not 
being  sufficiently  expert  in  the  game  to  know  whether  it 
was  a  good  move  or  not.  The  words  of  Socrates  in  the 
Apology  were  applicable:  "Which  is  better  God  only 
knows."  Are  not  these  words  largely  true  in  every 
choice?  And  yet  was  not  Socrates  right  in  holding  that 
he  could  not  conceive  of  one  having  a  realizing  sense  of 
what  is  his  good  and  at  the  same  time  taking  what, 
with  a  like  clearness  of  apprehension,  is  recognized  as  his 
loss  and  injury?  Full  knowledge,  approval  and  act  are 
indistinguishably  one  in  the  Perfect  Being  and,  so  far  as 
they  are  at  all  in  man,  they  seem  to  be  inseparably  one. 
In  God  is  perfect  freedom.  In  our  youth,  our  freedom 
seems  great,  for  it  is  the  freedom  of  indefiniteness ;  in 
maturity,  it  is  narrow  but  with  a  wide  vision  of  what  we 
should  not  attempt  and  cannot  do. 

23.  The  element  of  doubt  as  to  which  alternative  is 
the  good  of  the  self  makes  it  necessary  to  show  why  one 
course  rather  than  another  is  taken  in  spite  of  the  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  final  issue  which  no  "moral  intuition"  can 
overcome.  This  tentative  attitude  even  towards  the  best 
decisions  we  can  make  accounts  for  the  apparent  con- 


48  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION" 

tradiction  between  feeling  as  conservative  and  intellectual 
approval  or  disapproval  as  radical  and  revolutionary,  the 
unknown  element  evoking  the  impulse  to  daring  ventures. 

How  much  good  do  we  lose  by  the  rejected  alternatives? 
To  choose  to  be  a  physician  destroys  a  multitude  of  other 
possible  selves,  and  he  who  tries  to  be  a  physician  in- 
stead of  a  preacher  or  teacher  may  occasionally  question 
whether  he  has  not  missed  his  calling.  Might  not  the 
other  type  of  life  have  worked  out  better  in  a  larger  and 
richer  experience?  How  unfortunate  it  seems,  in  such 
moments,  that  we  could  not  have  tried  every  one  of  these 
possible  selves  and  finally  settled  our  permanent  type 
of  life  in  the  light  of  an  adequate  experience!  But 
the  necessity  of  action  due  to  the  brevity  of  life  and  the 
swiftness  of  opportunity,  the  danger  of  delay,  forbid  ex- 
periments in  kinds  of  self  and  force  the  choice  of  what  we 
shall  be  and,  if  now  we  are  not  that,  we  are  nothing. 
Here  is  tragedy.  Many  possible  selves  are  killed  by 
deciding  to  be  one  definite  self.  Curiously  enough,  the 
question  arises:  Is  not  this  necessity  a  mark  of  limita- 
tion? A  Perfect  Being  would  have  full  knowledge  and 
the  possible  would  be  actual. 

In  spite  of  the  full  significance  of  alternatives  being 
hidden,  there  is  some  sort  of  "intuition"  as  to  what  shall 
be  done,  an  "ideal  of  worth  as  regulative  principle" 
(Irons),  a  "sense  of  dignity"  (Mill),  a  "revelation,"  a 
"psycho-physical  predisposition,"  determining  decision. 
Much  mystery  attaches  to  the  process  which,  I  think,  is 
capable  of  an  empirical  interpretation.  It  has  been 
shown  that  reasons,  having  weight  in  deliberation  pre- 
ceding choice,  are  values  analyzable  into  feelings  and 
ideas  of  objects  towards  which  the  feelings  are  directed. 
These  feelings  are,  lacking  better  terms,  agreeable  or  dis- 
agreeable in  character  and  express  the  relation  of  the 
object  or  act  thought  of  to  the  needs  of  the  subject  which 
are  to  be  satisfied.  But  each  ideo-feeling  unity  is  motor 
in  tendency  and  would,  if  unrestrained,  issue  in  a  move- 


THE    WILL    AND    CHARACTER  49 

ment  to  obtain  or  escape  the  object  according  to  its  re- 
lation to  the  well-being  of  the  subject.  Each  alternative 
is  a  system  of  ideo-f eeling.  unities  motor  in  tendency,  and 
choice  is  the  selection  of  one  of  these  systems  as  the 
good  of  the  self.  The  specific  selection  is  brought  about 
by  the  fact  that  "when  any  psychical  process  rises  above 
the  threshold  of  consciousness,  it  is  the  affective  elements, 
which,  as  soon  as  they  are  strong  enough,  first  become 
noticeable.  They  begin  to  force  themselves  energetically 
into  the  fixation  point  of  consciousness  before  anything 
is  perceived  of  the  ideational  elements.  This  is  the  case 
whether  the  impressions  are  new  or  are  revivals  of  earlier 
processes.  This  is  what  causes  those  peculiar  states  of 
mind  the  reasons  for  which  we  are  usually  unable  to  dis- 
cover.77 44  The  feeling-tone  of  not  yet  reproduced  ideas 
mingles  with  the  feelings  already  present  in  consciousness, 
and  together  they  tend  toward  action  which  will  be  the 
rejection  or  adoption  of  an  alternative  according  as  its 
accompanying  composite  feelings  are  disagreeable  or 
agreeable  expressing  its  relation  to  the  well-being  of  the 
subject. 

If,  now,  a  certain  course  of  action  becomes  habitual, 
with  the  consequent  cessation  of  any  conscious  conflict 
between  alternatives,  the  way  will  be  prepared  for  those 
peculiar  and  constant  feelings  towards  certain  acts  of  the 
self,  or  of  others,  done  or  to  be  done,  as  always  either 
right  or  wrong,  good  or  bad,  without  clearly  recognizing 
the  reasons  why.  Thus  it  is  possible  to  give  an  empirical 
interpretation  of  our  "rational  intuition77  or  "moral 
sense77  that  certain  acts  are  inherently  vicious  or  good, 
but  this  inherent  badness  or  goodness  means,  not  that  the 
act  in  itself  has  this  quality,  but,  that  the  idea  of  this  act 
reinstates  the  feelings  of  its  associated  but  only  vaguely 
apprehended  ideas,  these  feelings  uniting  with  its  own  to 
reject  or  accept  the  alternative  according  to  the  character 
of  these  feelings  which  express  the  relation  of  the  act 
thought  of  together  with  its  associates  to  the  subject7s  well- 


50  MORAL    LIFE    AND    EELIGION" 

being.  If  the  subject  were  radically  to  change,  the  in- 
tuitively perceived  quality  of  the  same  act  might  be  bad 
where  formerly  it  was  good.  Hence  the  decision  might  be 
called,  as  Bosanquet  designates  it,  the  "logical"  conse- 
quence of  the  self,  if  "logical"  means  the  next  step  in  the 
self's  developing  experience.  At  another  level,  alternatives 
similar  to  those  formerly  rejected  may  be  chosen,  for  we 
may  be  mistaken  as  to  our  duty  without  destroying  the 
present  sense  of  duty  but  when  we  awaken  to  our  error 
as  the  result  of  some  newly  discovered  feature  of  the 
case,  we  may  make  a  new  and  even  contradictory  choice 
under  a  new  sense  of  duty  which  will  be  the  form  assumed 
by  our  "moral  intuition." 

Much  in  this  discussion  depends  upon  the  hypothesis  al- 
ready treated  that  it  is  the  function  of  feeling  to  express 
the  relation  of  an  object  or  an  act  to  the  welfare  of  the  sub- 
ject. Dr.  Crile  has  made  this  all  the  more  forceful  by  his 
exposition  of  the  evolutionary  hypothesis  that  every  vital 
manifestation  in  which  man  is  directly  or  remotely  con- 
cerned is  only  a  phase  of  the  organism's  adjustment  to 
the  environment.  In  this  sense,  man  is  essentially  a 
transformer  of  energy  derived  from  the  environment  and 
ultimately  returned  to  it,  as  a  result  of  which  the  reactions 
which  compose  his  life  are  the  effects  produced  in  a  sen- 
sitive structure  by  an  activating  environment.  Whether 
we  agree  with  him  or  not  in  the  details  of  his  argument, 
we  may  at  least  hold  that  sensation,  feeling,  emotion,  and 
even  higher  mental  processes,  are  modes  of  reactions 
that  have  been  evolved  in  the  age-long  process  and  sig- 
nify relations  to  the  environment  that  must  be  heeded  if 
life  is  to  be  conserved  and  promoted.45  Hence  it  is  the 
very  existence  of  the  subject  that  is  at  stake  in  the  choice 
which  means  that  the  good,  even  the  highest,  is  the  sat- 
isfaction of  this  craving  for  life. 

24.  The  conception  of  choice  as  the  "logical"  issue 
of  what  the  self  is  raises  the  question  as  to  personal  free- 
dom which  may  be  treated,  psychologically,  politically 


THE    WILL    AND    CH  ABAC  TEE  51 

and  metaphysically,  the  first  being  fundamental  to  a 
proper  understanding  of  the  others  and  the  only  one  now 
to  be  considered.  Psychology  assumes  that  the  so-called 
free  act  of  will  is  a  member  of  a  series  of  conditions 
which  soon  loses  itself  in  the  psychical  and  physical  his- 
tory of  the  individual.  In  the  "free"  choice,  only  a  few 
members  of  this  series  of  conditions  are  visible,  and  thus 
we  are  to  ourselves  absolutely  undetermined  by  anything 
except  our  own  will.46  Nevertheless  this  freedom  within 
determining  conditions  is  the  true  and  desirable  freedom. 
These  conditions  of  choice  it  is  the  province  of  psychology 
to  discover  and  explain. 

The  discussion  of  freedom  of  will  is  usually  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  individual  as  differentiated  from  the 
community.  The  individual  begins  life  in  subordination 
to  ties  of  birth,  speech,  customs  and  traditions.  Only 
slowly  does  the  individual  acquire  a  relative  independence 
of  thought,  feeling  and  action.  Consequently,  the  con- 
ditions operating  in  volition  are,  first,  those  due  to  the 
race  and  community  of  which  the  individual  is  an  expres- 
sion and  which  constitute  the  more  permanent  background 
of  action,  and,  second,  the  more  transient  conditions  given 
under  the  form  of  actually  present  ideas  and  feelings,  or 
motives.47 

Dealing  with  the  second  group  of  conditions  first,  free- 
dom of  will  is  psychologically  that  normal  balance  and 
right  relation  of  the  psychic  powers,  such  as  feelings, 
emotions,  ideas,  impulses,  as  permits  a  normal  self-ex- 
pression in  decisions.  Then  the  self  is  free  for  the  judg- 
ment follows  upon  sufficient,  well-balanced  deliberation 
upon  alternatives.  In  the  sense  of  determination  by  a 
conception  of  the  good  of  the  self,  freedom  is  an  attain- 
ment and  belongs  to  the  comparatively  well-developed  per- 
sonality. Indeed,  this  freedom  is  even  transitional  be- 
tween the  freedom  of  the  child  in  its  spontaneous  re- 
sponse to  what  appeals  to  the  sense  organs  and  instincts, 
and  the  spontaneous  activity  of  the  mature  character  rich 


52  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

in  experience — one  who,  without  conflict  or  painful  sense 
of  duty,  directly  does  the  act  suitable  to  the  changing 
moral  situation.  This  is  the  goal  of  the  moral  life,  the 
level  of  the  virtues,  and  the  highest  freedom.  In  this 
sense,  it  is  true  that  "except  ye  turn  and  become  as  little 
children,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."  (Mat,  18:3.) 

Between  the  earlier  and  the  later  stages  of  personal 
development  lies  the  period  in  which  the  individual  more 
forcefully  asserts  his  own  reconstructive  initiative  and 
differentiation  from  the  stream  of  social  life  of  which  he 
is  a  part,  but  in  the  later  as  in  the  earlier,  the  great  forces 
permanent  in  the  race  and  the  community  prevail  more 
surely  in  present  motives,  but  differently  in  that  the  well- 
developed  personality  returns  from  special  independence 
to  a  deep  self-identification  with  the  supreme  life  of  hu- 
manity and  its  welfare.  Reflective  choice  tries  to  view  the 
act  in  the  light  of  the  whole  self  including  character  as  the 
result  of  experience  and  of  the  deeper  forces  whose  his- 
tory can  be  followed  only  a  short  distance.  If  the  act 
is  not  determined  by  the  inner  causality  of  the  entire 
psychical  history  rather  than  by  present  motives  that  do 
not  represent  that  history,  one  is  not  free  but  the  plaything 
of  present  conditions.  In  this  sense,  it  may  be  again  said 
with  Bosanquet  that  the  free  act  is  the  "logical"  sequence 
of  the  self.  Freedom  has  thus  become  necessity,  for  the 
good  man  not  only  knows  but  performs  the  good  act  as  the 
only  thing  he  is  at  liberty  to  do.  Indeed,  the  good  man 
rejoices  in  the  necessity  imposed  by  his  virtuous  charac- 
ter and  the  wisdom  gained  in  the  school  of  life.  To  re- 
peat once  more,  he  has  a  narrow  but  true  freedom  with 
a  wide  vision  of  what  he  should  not  and  cannot  do. 

The  subject  under  the  conditions  just  explained  claims 
the  deed  as  his  own  and  is  willing  to  be  held  responsible. 
The  deed  stands  before  the  reflecting  subject  as  a  self- 
revelation.  There  are  here  remarkable  experiences  which 
can  only  be  mentioned  in  passing.  One  is  the  subject's 


THE  WILL  AND  CH  ABAC  TEE  53 

immediate  joy  during  the  deed,  if  it  is  his  own  self  ex- 
pression. This  is  the  source  of  much  satisfaction,  es- 
pecially if  the  act  is  adequate  to  the  ends  sought;  there 
is  also  an  immediate  self-approval  during  the  act  and  in 
retrospect,  particularly  if  it  promotes  welfare  and  is  fruit- 
ful of  further  enjoyable  experiences.  But,  if  the  act  does 
not  have  this  result,  there  is  an  experience  of  evil  and  re- 
straint with  failure  to  be  satisfied  which  calls  for  a  change 
of  purpose  sought.  Here  is  the  beginning  of  repentance, 
reform  and  identification  with  a  new  order  of  life  which 
promises  to  attain  the  good  always  being  sought. 

25.  The  unconventional  term,  "unfreedom,"  is  here 
used  to  mean  inability  to  determine  the  self  to  action  by 
a  conception  or  law  after  due  reflection  upon  the  moral 
situation. 

In  the  first  place,  lack  of  true  freedom  with  unwilling- 
ness to  be  held  responsible  occurs  when  the  normal  re- 
lation between  inhibitive  and  impulsive  aspects  of  con- 
sciousness is  disturbed.  There  are  extreme  cases,  for  ex- 
ample, when  the  subject  is  unable  to  bring  reflection  to 
a  normal  conclusion,  but  remains  in  continuous  indecision 
which  is  unendurable  to  the  healthy  mind.  Normally  we 
live  in  an  affirmative  state.  Better  and  less  dangerous  is 
it  to  decide  partly  in  the  wrong  and  carry  it  out  with  vigor 
than  continue  undecided.  Everybody  experiences  states 
of  more  or  less  protracted  indecision,  apparently  unable 
for  the  present  to  make  up  the  mind  what  to  do.  Of 
course,  decision  is  finally  reached  and,  it  may  be,  with 
greater  effort,  the  course  to  be  pursued  is  fixed.  Such  an 
issue  is  a  fortunate  escape  from  a  partially  deranged 
condition.  It  is  only  necessary  to  assume  a  continuous 
deliberation,  endlessly  analyzing  pros  and  cons,  to  have 
a  distressing  case  of  an  unfree  self,  unbalanced  and  in- 
efficient. In  the  normal  mind,  however,  the  necessity  of 
action  prevents  continuous  indecision  and  choices  are  made 
which,  it  is  true,  are  more  or  less  tentative  but  form  a 
somewhat  satisfactory  response  to  the  situation. 


54:  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

There  is  also  an  unfreedom  which  issues  in  too  hasty 
decisions  with  inability  to  restrain  the  psychic  processes 
sufficiently  for  due  reflection.  Waves  of  passion,  fixed 
ideas,  exaggerated  impulsion,  prevent  the  normal  expres- 
sion  of  the  self.  When  this  condition  is  in  mild  form, 
we  have  the  blunderers  who  do  more  harm  than  good  and 
wreck  well-laid  plans;  in  extreme  form,  such  persons 
may  be  the  criminal  insane  or  victims  of  sudden  passion. 
It  should  be  noted  that  the  free  and  the  unfree  acts  are 
subject  to  psychical  laws.  The  unfree  man  does  what  the 
deranged  psychical  condition  requires,  while  the  free 
makes  his  choice  according  to  what  he  conceives  his  good 
to  be ;  it  is  his  self-determination  and  his  freedom  is  found 
in  the  normal  balance  of  his  psychic  powers  which  enables 
him  to  subject  his  decision  to  calm  reflection  so  as  to 
reach  a  conclusion  which  in  some  sense  is  a  logical  ex- 
pression of  what  he  is,  and  his  good  in  that  particular 
situation.48 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  those  who  are  unfree  in 
complex  circumstances  but  free  and  able  to  function  ad- 
equately in  a  simple  environment.  Such  are  the  feeble- 
minded to  whom  reference  has  already  been  made  (sec. 
10)  and  whose  incapacity  is  due  chiefly  to  arrested 
development  of  the  neural  centers  and  association  tracts, 
thus  interfering  with  memory  processes  necessary  to 
mediation  of  impulses  and  required  in  deliberate  choice. 
These  persons  are  deficient  in  power  of  dramatic  rehear- 
sal of  the  consequences  of  different  courses  of  action.49 

"We  call  choice  free  when  it  takes  place  with  reflective 
self-consciousness  ...  of  one's  own  personality  together 
with  all  those  characteristics  which  result  from  the  past 
development  of  the  will.  ...  To  act  with  reflection  is 
to  act  with  a  consciousness  of  the  significance  which  the 
motives  and  purposes  of  the  action  have  for  the  character  of 
the  agent.  The  man  who  dreams  or  is  insane  may  act  not 
only  voluntarily  but  selfconsciously,  since  he  is  con- 
scious of  his  own  ego.  He  cannot,  however,  act  with  re- 


THE    WILL    AND    CHAKACTEK  55 

flection,  for  either  he  has  lost  the  power  of  reflecting  on 
his  personality  as  conditioned  by  his  previous  mental  his- 
tory, or  his  personality  has  been  altered  by  disturbing  in- 
fluences." 50 

The  same  principle  holds  of  the  feeble-minded  whose 
arrested  development  makes  them  incapable  of  relating 
their  actions  reflectively  to  the  whole  self.  It  seems, 
however,  impossible  that  the  defectives  are  totally  unfree 
and  morally  irresponsible  for  they  have  some  intelligence 
with  which  to  direct  activity  to  self-chosen  ends,  although 
it  is  only  the  mentality  of  a  normal  child  of  eight  to  twelve 
years  of  age.  It  would  seem  to  follow  that,  in  a  suitable 
environment  the  feeble-minded  are  morally  free  and  re- 
sponsible, while  in  others  too  complex  for  proper  coordin- 
ation of  activities,  they  would  not  be,  and  are,  instead, 
objects  of  care  and  oversight  on  the  part  of  the  normal 
minded  whose  ta<sk  is  to  fit  the  circumstances  to  the  mental 
capacity  of  the  less  favored  (Goddard). 

26.  The  free  act  is  subject  to  a  development  which 
consists  in  an  increasing  clearness  in  the  apprehension  of 
its  objective  relations  with  a  realizing  sense  that  what- 
ever is  done  will  enter  into  the  fabric  of  social  life  and 
will  induce  conditions  in  the  agent,  in  others,  and  in  the 
world  which  ever  after  prevail.  Consequently  every- 
body's future  will  be  made  easier  or  more  difficult  accord- 
ing to  what  is  done.  In  fact  the  decision,  springing  as  it 
does  from  the  nature  of  the  subject,  leaves  its  mark  upon 
the  subject  even  before  the  act  is  done.  "All  the  feelings 
that  motivate  an  action  presuppose  other  causal  condi- 
tions just  as  much  as  the  motives  that  finally  decide  it. 
Feelings  and  desires  are  thus  simply  the  last  members  of 
a  causal  series  that  is  only  to  a  very  limited  extent  acces- 
sible to  our  introspection,  since  it  ends  T>y  taking  in  the 
whole  previous  history  of  the  individual  consciousness 
and  the  sum-total  of  the  conditions  which  originally  de- 
termined the  latter.  And  so  we  see  that  every  voluntary 
act,  even  the  simplest,  is  the  end  of  an  infinite  series, 


56  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

of  which  the  last  links  alone  are  open  to  our  observa- 
tion." Consequently,  any  decision,  even  though  it  be 
not  acted  out,  indeed,  any  feeling  harbored  in  the  mind 
and  heart,  becomes  a  member  in  a  series  of  conditions  con- 
tributing to  later  volitions. 

We  now  catch  a  glimpse  of  what  freedom  politi- 
cally, and  metaphysically,  must  be,  though  only  a  word  is 
necessary  at  this  point  (sec.  24).  Psychological  freedom 
shows  that  one  is  politically  free  only  when  the  social 
order  is  such  as  to  permit  and  evoke  the  exercise  of  capac- 
ities in  such  a  manner  that  each  may  attain  a  fullness  of 
life  in  helpful  cooperation  with  others  who  have  a  similar 
happy  destiny,  while,  metaphysically,  that  is,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  universe  itself,  each  personality  is  being 
brought  through  self -direction  into  subordination  to  that 
definite  meaning  or  end  in  which  consists  the  reality  of 
the  self  and  which  determines  its  place  in  the  meaning  of 
the  world  as  that  meaning  is  known,  experienced  and  made 
actual  by  the  Divine  Mind.  Here  our  power  to  follow 
further  the  origin  and  significance  of  our  free  acts  ceases, 
for  we  have  seen  that  it  returns  into  the  all-embracing 
Life  which  wells  up  in  us  and  in  the  world-order  in  what 
Bergson  sails  Creative  Evolution. 

27.  The  above  reference  to  Bergson  is  intended  to 
approve  only  a  part  of  what  he  says  concerning  freedom 
and  that  has  been  already  emphasized,  namely,  "that  the 
self  alone  is  the  author"  of  the  free  act  which  "springs 
from  our  whole  personality"  which  is  finally  an  expression 
of  the  Divine  Life.  Bergson  also  is  right  when  he  says 
that,  to  find  the  free  self,  we  must  ascend  from  the  out- 
ward and  spatial  inward  to  pure  duration  which  is  a 
qualitative,  intensive  multiplicity  of  states  that  has  to  be 
experienced  to  be  known.  But  we  cannot  follow  him 
when  he  says  that  in  these  depths  of  the  inner  life,  in- 
describable in  terms  derived  from  sensual,  spatial  forms, 
and  beneath  deliberation  as  to  the  most  reasonable  course 
of  action,  there  is  a  "gradual  heating  and  a  sudden  boiling 


THE    WILL   AND    CHARACTER  57 

over  of  feelings  and  ideas"  which  leads  us  to  "choose  in 
defiance  of  what  is  conventionally  called  a  motive,  and  this 
absence  of  any  tangible  reason  is  the  more  striking  the 
deeper  our  freedom  goes;  and  that  occasionally,  in  fact, 
in  all  cases  of  really  free  action,  "we  decide  without  any 
reason,  and  perhaps  even  against  every  reason.  But  in  cer- 
tain cases,  that  is  the  best  of  reasons."  52 

It  may  be  replied  to  Bergson' s  view  that  the  activity 
to  which  he  refers  as  free  because  beyond  any  determina- 
tion by  thought,  if  there  is  such  a  thing,  is  no  reason  why 
it  should  be  called  free.  As  Schopenhauer,  regarding  the 
known  self  as  nothing  and  the  willing  self  as  real,  lost 
the  self  in  Nirvana,  so  does  Bergson  lose  the  self  in  this 
pure  duration  beyond  thought.  This  sudden  blazing  up 
and  "boiling  over  of  feelings  and  ideas"  leading  to  action 
without  reason,  even  against  reasons  recognized,  suggests 
that  man  is  most  free  when  not  a  man  but  an  animal. 
Like  Kant,  Bergson  seeks  the  free  self  beyond  the  em- 
pirical self  but,  unlike  Kant,  he  does  not  see  that  freedom 
consists  in  determining  action  according  to  conceptions 
which  spring  out  of  the  deeper  nature  of  the  self.  For  us, 
as  we  have  shown,  the  self  consists  in  some  ideal  end  being 
realized  in  self-conscious  experience  which  distinguishes 
the  individual  from  others  and  determines  the  place  of 
each  in  being.  For  us,  there  are  reasons  for  choice  which 
are  values  grounded  in  the  needs  springing  out  of  the 
depths  of  the  self  striving  for  fulfillment,  and  choice  is 
free  only  in  the  light  of  tie  self's  entire  history  much  of 
which  is,  of  course,  hidden  from  the  deliberative  con- 
sciousness. 

There  are  in  our  life,  indeed,  sudden  volitions  and  rad- 
ical changes  which  can  be  accounted  for  in  another  way 
than  by  resorting  to  Bergson's  intuition  of  what  is  to  be 
done  even  in  defiance  of  recognized  reasons.  These  expe- 
riences we  have  already  anticipated  and  accounted  for  (sec. 
23)  by  showing  the  tentative  hypothetical  nature  of  the 
judgment  reached  in  deliberation  upon  alternatives  and 


58  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION" 

by  explaining  the  apparently  original  intuition  of  right 
and  wrong,  good  and  evil,  in  terms  of  feelings  and  ideas, 
the  feelings  entering  consciousness  before  the  ideas  with 
which  they  are  associated  and  possessing  motor  tendencies. 
Thus  the  total  complex  of  feelings  may  be  the  forerunner 
of  the  best  and  most  reasonable  idea  of  action  which  is  not 
just  now  in  consciousness,  the  feelings  even  becoming  sud- 
denly greater  in  volume  with  the  approaching  reproduction 
of  the  idea,  making  it  possible  for  the  choice  to  be  against 
the  reasons  at  the  moment  in  consciousness.  As  a  con- 
sequence, the  decision  and  choice  are,  in  some  sense  at 
least,  the  logically  legitimate  next  step  in  self-develop- 
ment, and  its  mystery,  which  Bergson  makes  so  much  of, 
becomes  a  familiar  psychological  principle.* 

*  The  Freudian  theory  of  complex  organizations  of  neural  ele- 
ments into  systems  beneath  the  normal  waking  consciousness  which, 
when  aroused,  may  find  expression  in  impulses  to  good  or  evil,  seems 
to  have  been  sufficiently  recognized  in  what  I  have  designated  as 
rudimentary  conations,  psychophysical  predispositions,  neural  mod- 
ifications by  Impressions  and  retention  both  racial  and  individual. 
Much  more  might  be  done  along  these  lines,  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
make  these  neural  processes  and  organizations  any  clearer  to  say 
that  these  neural  complexes  have  desires  or  are  "wishes"  suppressed 
for  the  time  being  only  later  to  find  some  unique  expression  in  the 
normal  consciousness.  We  know  so  little,  as  Stout  says,  of  the 
actual  neural  process  involved  even  in  the  simplest  sensation  that 
questions  concerning  the  relation  of  the  hidden  complexes  of  neural 
activities  to  consciousness  seem  to  be  unanswerable.  We  use  terms 
that  simply  conceal  our  ignorance  of  what  really  takes  place,  such 
as  conations,  tendencies,  congenital  pathways,  ideo-motor  action, 
psycho-physical  predispositions,  ready  to  respond  to  occasions  af- 
forded by  the  environment  in  such  a  way  as  to  preserve  the  well- 
being  of  the  organism.  All  of  these  processes  have  an  opportunity 
to  reveal  themselves  in  deliberation  and  choice,  and  often  the  hidden 
depths  of  the  psycho-physical  organism  find  expression  in  a  "gradual 
heating  and  a  sudden  boiling  over  of  feelings  and  ideas"  in  the  free 
act  of  will,  as  Bergson  says,  or  according  to  Freud,  the  suppressed 
"wish"  gains  the  dominating  position  when  the  censor  or  higher 
self  loses  its  grip.  The  purpose  of  this  study  does  not  permit  further 
consideration  of  the  merit  of  these  theories  whose  essential  signifi- 
cance, I  believe,  is  embodied  in  the  views  adopted  in  the  discussion 
of  volition  and  choice  after  deliberation  upon  occasions  presented 
by  the  environment  to  which  response  is  necessary  for  personal  well- 
being. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  MORAL  LAW  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL 

28.  It  has  been  shown  (sees.  7,  8)  that  everyone  be- 
gins life  in  subjection  to  ties  of  birth,  speech  and  custom, 
and  that  consciousness  of  self  and  the  consciousness  of 
others  develop  together.  Only  gradually  does  each 
person  gain  relative  independence  through  individual  in- 
itiative in  thought  and  action,  while  the  affective  attitudes, 
especially  the  emotions  of  love  and  hate,  tend  to 
differentiate  the  self  from  others,  bringing  to  light 
the  problem  of  reconciling  this  apparent  individual- 
ism with  general  rules  of  conduct  which  seem  to  re>- 
quire  common  interests.  In  order  to  treat  this  problem,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  laws  are  not  existing  things 
but  formulations  of  experienced  processes,  such  as  the 
law  of  gravitation  or  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  or 
international  law.  Likewise  moral  laws  are  only  rules 
of  action  which  undertake  to  formulate  the  relation  of 
certain  acts  to  their  motives  and  effects  upon  the  welfare 
of  the  agent  and  of  those  with  whom  he  has  to  do.  In 
each  of  these  cases,  the  experienced  facts  are  primary, 
the  rules  or  law  secondary. 

Confining  attention  to  the  moral  sphere,  the  virtues  such 
as  truthfulness,  honesty,  purity,  temperance,  courage, 
with  their  imperatives,  are  really  formulations  of  the  re- 
lation between  certain  feelings,  ideas,  volitions  and  their 
effects  upon  personal  and  social  welfare.  Repeated  ex- 
periences evoke  sufficient  reflection  to  discover  and  formu- 
late what  seems  to  be  a  fixed  relation  between  these  feel- 
ings, ideas,  volitions  and  acts,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on 
the  other,  their  good  or  evil  effects  upon  the  self  and  upon 
other  persons.  These  formulations  are  also  the  coopera- 

59 


60  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

tive  product  of  the  members  of  the  social  group  and  first 
appear  as  customs  representing  the  conditions  of  social 
welfare;  at  a  more  developed  stage,  as  the  voice  of  con- 
science which  the  individual  obeys  when  he  as  a  free  moral 
agent  decides  what  is  to  be  done.  Consequently,  there 
is  in  the  moral  sphere  the  necessity  and  the  universality 
implied  in  law.  It  is  evident  that  moral  law  assumes 
free  will  acts  to  be  the  issue  of  present  motives  and  re- 
mote conditions  involved  in  the  history  of  each  person, 
and  that  there  is  such  a  relation  between  the  free  per- 
sonality and  the  natural  and  social  world  that  the  volition 
is  the  joint  product  of  inner  psychical  causality  and  outer 
physical  and  social  causality  to  the  same  end  of  personal 
well-being. 

Where,  now,  is  the  universal  element  in  these  moral 
phenomena  in  view  of  each  person's  relative  independence 
and  free  initiative?  We  may  easily  grant  that  there  is 
such  an  element  yet,  probably,  no  one  has  exactly  the 
same  attitude  towards  or  idea  of  a  custom,  rule,  or  self- 
imposed  law  of  action  as  another,  nor  has  one  the  same 
situation  to  meet  as  another.  But  law  implies  repeti- 
tions. There  seem,  however,  to  be  no  repetitions  in  the 
moral  sphere,  for  the  subject  i.s  modified  by  his  own  act, 
others  feel  its  effects,  a  duty  done  creates  a  new  duty,  and 
nothing  is  just  the  same  after  as  it  was  before  the  act. 
Personally  we  each  feel  that  no  one  could  have  had  just 
the  crises  to  face  that  each  of  us  has  had  to  meet.  I  know 
that  my  experiences  may  be  regarded,  abstractly,  as  only 
a  type  capable  of  indefinite  repetition  but,  for  me,  they 
are  unique  and  impossible  of  duplication  so  long  as  I  am 
myself.  Individuality  implies  uniqueness.  How,  then, 
can  there  be  a  rule  of  action  that  more  than  one  should  fol- 
low? Still  more  precisely,  how  can  the  same  individual 
have  a  rule  of  action,  for  is  not  each  modified  by  his  own 
responses  to  the  environment  which  constantly  changes  and 
is  affected  by  the  agent's  own  action? — but  change  in- 
Tolves  time  while  a  rule  or  law  of  action  implies  same- 


THE    MOKAL    LAW   AND    THE    INDIVIDUAL  61 

ness  at  different  times  apparently  making  real  change  im- 
possible. Indeed,  it  is  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  the 
universals  of  thought  to  the  particulars  of  experience  which 
has  engaged  attention  from  Plato  and  Aristotle  until  now. 
A  good  example  of  these  difficulties  is  found  in  Leibnitz's 
theory  of  the  changing  monads  which,  according  to  Lotze 
(Met.  sec.  67),  do  not  permit  those  repetitions  of  partic- 
ulars which  seem  to  be  required  if  there  is  to  be  a  general 
rule  or  law. 

29.  The  attempt  to  provide  for  the  objectivity  and 
universality  required  by  moral  theory  is  in  danger  of 
either  reverencing  the  universal  as  an  abstract  rational 
principle,  or  of  emphasizing  the  particulars  in  such  a 
manner  that  no  bond  between  them  can  be  found.  Prob- 
ably Hegel  showed  best  the  true  relation  between  the  uni- 
versal, particular  and  individual  (Logic.  Sec.  163).  I  be- 
lieve Hegel  explains  what  the  individual  is  in  our  ex- 
perience and  that  he  holds  the  universal  to  be  only  a  pro- 
duct of  thought  existing  only  for  "the  mind  (Logic.  Sees. 
21,  164).  It  is,  however,  the  fashion  to  say  that  Hegel 
neglected  experience,  though  in  my  opinion  he  discusses 
nothing  else  as  the  "Phenomenology  of  the  Spirit"  and 
even  the  Logic  make  clear.  In  response  to  this  attitude 
toward  Hegel,  our  task  is  to  determine  whether  there  are 
bases  in  particular  experiences  for  those  universal  rules 
or  laws  that  morality  seems  to  require.  In  an  earlier 
section,  I  reviewed  in  brief  the  attempts  of  Shand,  West- 
ermarck,  McDougal  and  others  to  found  character  upon 
primarily  emotional  tendencies  issuing  in  a  doubtful  hold 
upon  universals,  and  showed  how  these  views  were  met  by 
others  who,  like  Rashdall,  return  to  an  a  priori  rational 
source  of  moral  principles  in  order  to  secure  objectivity 
and  universality  (Sec.  7  note).  To  these  authors  may 
be  added  Coe  who  in  his  Psychology  of  Religion  (p.  246 
f.)  makes  much  of  "social  immediacy,"  as  linking  the  in- 
dividual with  other  selves,  from  which  the  distinct  per- 
sonality becomes  differentiated  especially  through  love 


62  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

and  hate,  but  Coe  does  not  seem  to  explain  how  and  in 
what  sense,  after  the  self  s  differentiation,  it  is  still  pos- 
sible to  have  common  rules  of  action.  It  should  be  noted 
that  a  rule  or  law  of  action  is  a  cognitive  formulation  and 
is  not  identical  with  the  intuitive  "social  immediacy77 
above  referred  to,  or  with  instinctive,  emotional  "psycho- 
physical  predispositions"  inherited  or  acquired,  whatever 
this  term  may  mean.  I  shall  now  undertake  to  explain 
the  way  in  which  I  think  such  universals  are  related  to 
the  particulars  of  experience. 

There  is  a  ground  for  the  universality  of  ethical  ideas 
in  their  sensuous  and  social  origin.  The  word  "good," 
for  instance,  has  a  varied  use  such  as,  a  good  dinner,  pic- 
ture, or  action.  The  term  ethical  is  from  an  original 
(20os,  TJOos)  that  refers  to  custom,  and,  in  its  earliest 
meaning,  to  the  abiding  place  of  men  or  animals.  Then 
it  comes  to  signify  the  disposition  resulting  from  a  famil- 
iar environment,  while  Aristotle  gives  it  a  still  deeper 
significance  expressing  inner  character.53  The  sensuous 
origin  of  ethical  ideas  presupposes  fundamental  capaci- 
ties and  needs  in  relation  to  the  environment,  such  as 
hunger  and  food  to  satisfy  it.  Fundamental  needs  and 
what  satisfies  them  afford  a  basis  upon  which  thought 
rests  the  construction  of  a  universal.  Multiply  the  needs 
in  number  and  kind  in  relation  to  a  relatively  constant 
environment  and  it  is  evident  that  men  have  original  and 
acquired  needs  much  alike  capable  of  being  satisfied  in 
similar  ways. 

Although  differentiated  from  the  group  through  unique 
feelings,  thoughts  and  voluntary  acts,  the  career  of  every 
person  still  shares  in  the  social  mind  and  will  which,  like 
that  of  the  individual,  is  a  unity  of  mental  states  and,  to 
a  certain  extent,  is  a  product  of  the  social  order  and  re 
fleets  the  community  life  past  and  present.  "The  indi- 
vidual is  simply  the  last  member  of  a  series  whose 
ascending  order  is  lost  in  infinity."  54  Just  because  the 


THE    MORAL    LAW    AND    THE    INDIVIDUAL  63 

individual  embodies  the  deeper  life  of  the  community, 
yet  acts  voluntarily  according  to  self-formed  conceptions 
of  the  good,  there  is  opportunity  for  new  factors  to  be 
introduced  into  society  through  which  the  individual  be- 
comes universal.  Especially  does  this  new  progressive 
element  enter  into  society  through  its  leading  minds.  It 
follows  that  our  choices  more  or  less  faithfully  represent 
the  needs  of  everyone  including  our  own.  But  the 
maxim  of  our  choice  is  only  a  tentative  working  hypoth- 
esis, awaiting  the  revelation  of  its  consequences  before  it 
can  be  given  the  rank  of  a  safe  rule  of  action.  If  it 
works,  we  hold  to  it  as  long  as  we  are  in  this  part  of  the 
journey  and,  if  ever  after  we  find  ourselves  in  a  like 
environment,  we  shall  use  the  same  rule,  guide  ourselves 
by  the  same  chart,  and  the  more  frequently  used,  the 
more  certainly  will  the  rule  of  action  become  a  habit,  a 
part  of  our  character  and  even  an  intuition.  It  also 
seems  to  me  that  our  choices  are  supplemented  by  a 
reasonable  faith  that  the  causality  in  our  psychical 
antecedents  and  the  causality  in  the  world-order  form 
some  sort  of  an  identity  which  issues  in  volitions  that  tend 
to  promote  individual  and  social  well-being.  Of  this 
there  is  no  proof  except  the  empirical,  "wait  and  see." 
The  remainder  is  trust  in  the  fundamental  goodness  of 
human  nature  and  in  the  fitness  of  the  world  to  be  the 
stage  upon  which  the  moral  drama  is  enacted.55 

Though  individual  initiative  in  choice  seems  to  be 
inconsistent  with  rules  of  action,  psychical  and 
physiological  processes  are  rapidly  mechanized  in  char- 
acter of  sufficient  constancy  to  be  expressed  in  at  least 
relatively  universal  rules  of  action  applicable  to  the 
individual.  Why  this  mechanization  of  activity  takes 
place  can  no  more  be  explained  than  why  the  retina,  when 
stimulated,  gives  rise  to  sensations  of  light.  There  is 
also  a  tendency  to  eliminate  acts  and  methods  of  action 
that  are  harmful  and  to  establish  those  that  are  beneficial 


64  MORAL   LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

— a  tendency  which  admits  of  no  further  explanation 
unless  it  is  regarded  as  an  inherited  product  of  gener- 
ations of  selective  exerience. 

The  same  process  of  development  has  a  social,  ontolo- 
gical,  even  religious,  significance.  In  becoming  a  person 
differentiated  through  feelings,  thoughts  and  volitions 
from  the  family  and  group  whose  immediate  influence 
declines,  the  physical  crises  through  which  the  body 
passes  in  adolescence  are  correlated  with  mental  crises 
resulting  in  an  expansion  of  the  self  until  the  personal 
will  is  surrendered  to  the  guidance  of  forces  more 
broadly  conceived.  In  this  changed  condition,  the 
individual,  even  through  free  choice,  helps  to  form  a 
broader  national  character  typical  of  humanity  at  large. 
Then  it  is  easy  voluntarily  to  identify  ourselves,  very 
much  in  the  manner  of  Spinoza,  with  the  universe  itself, 
or,  in  religious  faith,  with  God.  This  is  the  normal 
course  of  human  experience  which,  if  lacking,  as  it  may 
be,  since  there  are  bad  as  well  as  good  characters,  leaves 
life  undeveloped  and  its  needs  unsatisfied.56  Thus, 
through  freedom  of  choice  with  its  assertion  of  individu- 
ality, we  pass  to  the  necessity  involved  in  the  stead- 
fastness of  character  correlated  with  the  "moral  trust- 
worthiness of  the  universe."  5T  Upon  this  two-fold 
basis  rest  our  rules  of  action  and  whatever  universality 
they  possess,  while  room  is  left  for  changes  which  may 
limit  their  application.  But,  whatever  occurs,  we  hold 
with  Socrates  in  the  Phaedo  (Par.  98-99)  that  it  will  be 
subordinated  to  the  Best  which  is  the  highest  of  all 
reasons  why  the  event1  should  occur,  thus,  again  with 
Socrates,  becoming  a  partisan  in  faith. 
/"  30.  If  it  is  held  that  rules  of  action,  instead  of  being 
/  relatively  constant,  are  fixed,  that  is,  if  we  hold  to  the 
abstract  universal,  there  is  danger  of  resorting  to  the 
subterfuges  of  casuistry  keeping  the  letter  of  the  law  but 
violating  its  spirit.  If  "circumstances  alter  cases," 


THE    MOBAL   LAW   AND    THE    INDIVIDUAL  65 

how  can  a  rule  of  action  be  universally  valid,  since 
circumstances  are  never  twice  identical?  Tell  the  truth. 
But  shall  the  thief,  the  enemy,  the  critically  ill,  be  told 
the  truth?  Obligation  to  tell  implies  the  right  to  the 
truth  which  may,  indeed,  be  forfeited.  For  Kant,  no 
conditions  could  remove  the  obligation  to  tell  the  truth, 
the  principle  of  whose  violation  would  make  all  truth 
impossible  and  destroy  society.  It  is  usual  to  say  that 
Kant's  imperative  is  an  empty  formula:  "Act  in  con- 
formity with  that  maxim,  and  that  maxim  only,  which 
you  can  at  the  same  time  will  to  be  a  universal  law." 
But  Kant  himself  says:  "This  law  is  merely  formal,  or 
prescribes  only  the  form  of  that  maxim  which  can  be  a 
universal  law,  and  hence  it  abstracts  from  all  matter, 
that  is,  from  every  object  of  volition  .  .  .  and  the  moral 
law  must  alone  determine  the  pure  will,  and  its  sole 
object  is  to  produce,  or  help  to  produce,  such  a  will."  58 

From  Kant's  formal  law  come  the  practical  impera- 
tives: "Act  so  as  to  use  humanity  whether  in  your  own 
person  or  in  the  person  of  another,  always  as  an  end, 
never  as  merely  a  means" ;  and  "Act  so  that  the  will  may 
regard  itself  as  in  its  maxims  laying  down  universal 
laws."  To  these,  Kant  adds  the  comment:  "The  three 
ways  in  which  the  principle  of  morality  has  been 
formulated  are  at  bottom  simply  different  statements  of 
the  same  law,  and  each  implies  the  other  two."59  Con- 
sequently, the  obligation,  for  example,  to  tell  the  truth 
admits  of  no  exception  in  view  of  circumstances,  for 
failure  to  do  so  could  not  will  its  maxim  a  universal  law. 
The  kingdom  of  ends,  essentially  identical  with  the 
Christian  conception  of  the  Kingdom  of  God,  would  be 
impossible.  Kant  at  least  suggests  what  Hegel  after- 
wards made  clear  that  the  universal  and  particular  imply 
each  other  and  that  the  universal  by  itself  is,  indeed, 
formal  and  empty,  but  that  it  belongs  to  the  universal  to 
particularize  itself  in  concrete  experiences. 


66  MOKAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

31.  It  has  been  said  that  Kant's  imperative  means  only 
consistency  of  action  like  the  Stoic  Zeno's  maxim :  "Act 
consistently  on  one  principle. " 

"Both  views,"  says  Dr.  Caird,  "go  upon  the  idea  that 
the  reason  which  makes  us  men  is  an  impartial  faculty — 
that  abstracts  from  our  own  individual  case,  and,  indeed, 
from  every  individual  case;  and  both  views  imply  that 
we  cannot  act  consistently  on  one  law  or  principle  and 
yet  act  wrongly.  ...  To  universalize  the  maxim  of  an 
act,  therefore,  must  mean,  if  it  means  anything,  to  con- 
ceive it  as  an  element  in  the  system  of  things,  which  can 
be  realized  consistently  with  the  realization  of  all  the 
other  elements  that  make  up  that  system,"  that  is,  "consis- 
tently with  the  whole  system  of  the  universe."  60 

This  view  of  Kant's  imperative  is  acceptable  if  the 
"whole  system  of  the  universe"  is  realizing  our  well- 
being  but  our  ends  which  we  choose  are  not  the  universe 
but  the  fulfillment  of  our  capacities  in  a  satisfying  expe- 
rience of  their  appropriate  functioning.  We  are,  however, 
seeking  the  elements  in  the  agent,  in  the  situation  and  in 
his  choice  which  afford  a  basis  for  a  universal  law  of 
action.  Caird,  I  think,  in  the  above  passage,  too  easily 
escapes  the  difficulty,  although  it  may  be  an  unavoidable 
postulate  that  in  deciding  what  to  do,  the  individual  com- 
mits himself  to  the  "whole  system  of  the  universe"  trust- 
ing in  the  beneficent  significance  of  the  forces  expressing 
themselves  in  the  choice  with  confidence  in  the  environ- 
ment to  which  response  is  made  and  in  reality  itself.  Reli- 
gion utters  the  same  faith  in  the  confession  "that  to  them 
that  love  God  all  things  work  together  for  good,  even  to 
them  that  are  called  according  to  His  purpose"  (Rom.  8. 
28),  according  to  the  necessity  inherent  in  the  system  of 
things  which  includes  the  individual  and  finds  expression 
in  volition. 

The  ultimate  implications  of  universal  laws  of  conduct, 
just  referred  to,  may  be,  in  a  measure,  avoided  by  reduc- 
ing these  laws  to  tentative  hypotheses  of  action  not  to  be 


THE    MORAL    LAW    AND    THE    INDIVIDUAL  67 

followed  as  unalterable  but  as  points  of  view  to  be  applied 
to  the  changing  environment,  continuously  presenting 
moral  situations  for  which  old  rules  of  action  may,  or  may 
not,  be  suitable,  though  the  required  modification  may  be 
slight.  Dispute  arises  chiefly  concerning  the  application 
of  principles,  for  all  agree,  for  example,  that  the  truth 
should  be  told,  but  difference  of  opinion  occurs  as  to  how 
best  to  serve  the  interests  of  truth  and  right  in  a  given  sit- 
uation.61 What  the  Greeks  called  wisdom,  in  distinction 
from  knowledge,  should  always  fit  the  deed  to  the  occa- 
sion. "There  is  no  moral  law  so  sacred  that  it  may  not  in 
specific  cases  have  to  yield  to  the  superior  sacredness  of 
the  more  general  functions  of  morality."  62  Whether  pre- 
cepts of  conduct  are  on  occasion  modified  or  not,  the 
agent  implicitly  commits  his  deed  to  the  assumed  meaning 
and  goodness  of  reality.  Such  an  attitude  towards  rules 
of  conduct,  as  validated  by  their  beneficent  consequences, 
is  in  keeping  with  the  functional  nature  of  knowledge 
and  with  the  completion  of  morality  in  religious  faith. 

32.  If,  as  we  have  said,  moral  precepts  are  not  abso- 
lute, how  is  the  authority  of  moral  principles  to  be  under- 
stood?    Their    sanctions    are    external    constraints    such 
as   public  opinion   and  social   institutions,   and   internal 
such  as  habits  and  the  persistent  desire  for  permanent  sat- 
isfaction. Hence  in  the  preferences  controlling  volition, 
the  deeper  imperative  needs  find  expression.     Besides,  in 
the  process  of  self-development,  choices  become  subordi- 
nated to  a  wider  conception  of  the  community,  the  nation, 
and  humanity,  and  even  identify  the  self  with  God.  Of 
special  importance  are  those  ideal  characters  of  literature, 
art,  morality,  and  religion,  who  seem  to  embody  the  en- 
tire spirit  of  humanity  in  living,  concrete,  yet  universal, 
personality,  regarded  by  their  fellow-beings  as  the  very 
manifestation  of  God  on  earth.  It  is  through  these  noble 
characters  who  act  for  the  sake  of  the  highest  ideal  good 
of  humanity  that  society  is  purified  and  progresses.63 

33.  A  choice  usually  requires  a  continuous  selection  of 


68  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

methods,  times,  and  means  to  the  end  decided  upon,  until 
the  deed  is  accomplished.  The  period  necessary  to  fulfill- 
ment varies  according  as  the  purpose  is  near  or  remote, 
simple  or  complex.  This  selection  reveals  character  as 
much  as  the  choice  of  ends.  The  moral  quality  of  the  deed 
requires  that  the  means  be  good  as  well  as  the  end  which 
together  form  a  whole  of  parts,  each  part  having  its  fit 
place  in  the  unity  in  subordination  to  the  end.  In  this 
respect,  moral  goodness  has  much  in  common  with  the 
beautiful  whose  parts  form  a  whole  expressive  of  a  def- 
inite meaning.  In  this  sense,  the  parts  of  a  beautiful 
whole  may  be  spoken  of  as  beautiful,  though  in  themselves 
they  are  evil  or  even  ugly,  like  the  character  of  Satan  in 
Miiton's  "Paradise  Lost,"  or  of  lago  in  the  "Othello"  of 
Shakespeare.64  We  may,  then,  speak  of  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness and  of  the  beautiful  soul.  The  Greeks  easily  identi- 
fied the  beautiful  and  the  good;  but,  for  us,  the  morally 
good  act  in  its  purpose  and  in  its  means  is  more  than  a 
beautiful  harmony  of  parts,  for  the  means  must  be  good 
as  well  as  the  end.  There  is,  therefore,  no  moral  basis  for 
doing  evil  that  good  may  come.  The  comparison  of  the 
choice  of  evil  means  to  the  plucking  out  of  the  eye,  or  the 
cutting  off  of  the  hand,  if  it  offends,  that  there  may  be 
soundness  of  body,  is  inapplicable.  To  choose  means 
known  to  be  evil  that  a  moral  good  may  be  accomplished 
is  a  contradiction,  for  the  deed  is  a  unity  of  means  and 
end  and  cannot  be  partly  good  and  partly  bad  without 
destroying  the  moral  worth  of  the  act  as  a  whole.  On  the 
other  hand,  morally  good  means  to  a  bad  end  do  not  make 
the  act  good  nor  can  it  be  properly  called  partly  good  and 
partly  bad  without  contradicting  the  unity  of  the  act.65 

It  is,  however,  a  curious  fact  that  we  are  inclined  to 
give  some  credit  for  good  means  to  bad  ends,  and  for  good 
ends  brought  about  by  bad  means.  Probably  this  is  because 
none  of  our  acts  is  ever  either  perfectly  good  or  evil. 
There  is  some  good  even  in  sin,  for  sin  were  not  sin,  if 
it  did  not  make  holiness  so  evident,  and  if  it  were  not 
the  expression  of  will  as  is  the  good.  How  discomfiting 


THE    MORAL   LAW    AND    THE   INDIVIDUAL  69 

to  Satan  to  be  compelled  to  do  some  good  that  he  may  do 
the  greatest  evil,  and  to  know  that  he  cannot  do  only  evil 
in  God's  good  world!  Besides,  we  never  fully  know  the 
scope  of  our  purposes,  nor  the  entire  significance  of  the 
means  we  use.  Both  may  be  somewhat  unsuitable  in  spite 
of  our  good  intentions.  Hence  we  easily,  though  wrongly, 
give  some  credit  for  good  means  to  bad  ends,  or -for  good 
ends  with  bad  means,  forgetting  the  difference  between 
unintentional  and  intentional  choice  of  bad  means  or  ends. 
This  is  not  surprising,  for  we  feel  some  uncertainty  con- 
cerning our  own  motives  and  acts  because  of  their  com- 
plexity. Ea,ch  factor  in  each  act  has  many  associates. 
Every  feeling,  idea,  volition,  and  act,  is  related  to  every 
other.  Are  the  means,  taken  in  themselves,  good?  Are 
they  consistent  with  each  other  and  with  the  chief  end? 
Our  acts  are  very  complex  and  intricate,  for  they  are 
rooted  in  an  endless  series  of  psychophysical  conditions, 
individual  and  social,  issuing  in  the  representation  of 
some  desired  object  chosen  as  the  good  of  the  self  after 
reflection  upon  other  courses  regarded  as  possible.  Then 
comes  selection  of  means,  methods,  personal  relations  to 
others,  place  and  time  in  subordination  to  the  main  pur- 
pose, till  the  act  is  finally  accomplished,  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  the  organism,  in  the  external  world 
where  control  over  it  and  its  consequences  is  lost.  Even 
the  chain  of  natural  forces  modifies  the  deliberative  proc- 
ess and  may  cause  the  best  intentions  to  miscarry.  Some- 
times, these  natural  causes  save  us  from  evil  repute  and 
bring  us  undeserved  merit  by  defeating  our  bad  aims  and 
producing  good  results ;  or,  they  may  hinder  our  good  pur- 
poses and  make  us  appear  either  indifferent,  careless,  help- 
less, or  unjust,  till  one  is  tempted  to  believe  the  world 
unsuited  to  our  moral  task.  And  yet  it  is  through  these 
deliberations  and  choices  that  we  may  bring  ourselves, 
sometimes  slowly  and  painfully,  into  harmony  with  that 
"system  of  the  universe  of  things,"  as  Caird  says,  which 
we  somewhat  blindly  trust  is  working  together  with  us  to 
fulfill  our  longings  for  well-being  and  the  highest  good. 


CHAPTER  V 
DUTIES  AND  VIRTUES 

34.  A  word   should  be  given  to  what  Paulsen  calls 
moral  nihilism  which  denies  the  validity  of  moral  ideals 
and  declares  that  there  is  no  duty.  Life  is  a  struggle  for 
existence  in  which  anything  is  permissible,  if  it  succeeds, 
whether  it  be  murder,  violence,  or  falsehood.  Justice,  law, 
and  religion  are  for  weak  minds  who  are  willing  to  be 
slaves.  No  claim  of  duty  or  of  religious  ideals  ever  recog- 
nized by  others  needs  to  be  heeded.    The  universe  is  indiff- 
erent. Each  lives  for  himself,  caring  nothing  for  others, 
with  no  fear,  hope,  love,  ideals,  or  reverence  for  past  or 
present,  and  there  is  no  Divine.  Life  means  a  struggle  to 
get  what  is  desired  and,  so  far  as  successful,  good  is  real- 
ized. 

Affirmations  such  as  these  cannot  be  refuted.  The 
sense  of  obligation  cannot  be  logically  forced  upon  an- 
other any  more  than  we  can  refute  a  man  who  denies  the 
existence  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens.  "But  this  does  not 
mean  that  nihilism  is  a  valid  theory.  We  cannot  prove  to 
the  fever  patient  that  he  sees  only  hallucinations,  or  to 
the  madman  that  his  fixed  ideas  are  crazy  notions.  That 
does  not  prevent  the  former  from  being  sick  or  the  latter 
from  being  crazy."  The  best  thing  that  can  be  done  is  to 
remind  the  moral  and  religious  nihilist  that  he  may  be 
mistaken,  and  to  suggest  that  he  does  not  himself  believe 
what  he  says  and  that,  at  least,  he  would  have  difficulty 
in  the  practical  application  of  his  views.  We  may,  there- 
fore, turn  from  such  a  moral  and  religious  nihilism  as 
beyond  the  scope  of  argument  and  resume  the  discussion 
of  experience  known  as  duty.66 

35.  The  nature  and  origin  of  the  sense  of  obligation 

70 


DUTIES   AND    VIRTUES  71 

have  already  been  considered  (sees.  22,  31).  Our  interest 
now  concerns  the  application  of  moral  principles  to  con- 
crete situations.  The  ideal  of  the  highest  good  was  found 
to  be  grounded  in  the  original  and  acquired  capacities 
striving  for  realization  giving  rise  to  a  multitude  of  needs 
that  are  felt  and  reflected  upon,  developing  the  ideal  of 
the  most  enduring  satisfaction.  A  specific  duty  is  what  is 
owed  to  this  supreme  ideal  in  a  particular  situation, 
while  virtue  is  the  habitual  response  to  what  is  thus  re- 
quired. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  there  is  no  abstract  duty,  al- 
though Kant  in  his  Apostrophe  to  Duty  makes  it  of 
heavenly  origin.  It  is,  indeed,  true  that,  in  a  general  sense, 
we  may  speak  of  our  duty  to  seek  the  supreme  end  of  our 
being.  But,  as  Emerson  says,67  "Life  is  a  succession  of 
lessons  which  must  be  lived  to  be  understood."  All  duties 
are  specific,  since  they  arise  out  of  the  relation  of  the  in- 
dividual to  himself  and  to  his  environment.  A  specific 
duty  is  what  one  expects  of  himself  in  a  particular  sit- 
uation. It  is  a  consciously  experienced  demand  for  ac- 
tion which  is  to  cause  a  change  both  in  the  agent  and  in 
the  environment,  presumably  for  the  better  according  as 
it  brings  into  experience  and  renders  definite  the  vague 
ideas  of  the  best  good  of  the  self  as  a  member  of  the  com- 
munity and  a  factor  in  the  universe.  Wundt  even  holds 
that  the  individual  is  short-sighted  at  best,  limited  per- 
haps to  his  own  posterity,  at  most  to  a  few  generations, 
whereas  the  true  end  is  public  welfare  and  the  universal 
progress  of  humanity  in  which  all  that  is  individual  is 
absorbed.  We  judge  the  men  and  nations  of  the  past 
"not  by  the  happiness  which  they  themselves  enjoyed, 
nor  by  the  happiness  they  gave  to  their  contemporaries; 
but  solely  by  what  they  have  done  for  the  total  develop- 
ment of  humanity  in  all  subsequent  ages."  68  Even  so, 
we  may  reply,  yet  it  means,  not  exactly  identity  of  the 
end  of  the  individual  with  that  of  the  race,  but,  identity 
with  a  difference,  for  each  of  us  is  unique  in  individuality 


72  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

with  something  definite  to  accomplish  and  with  specific 
duties  growing  out  of  our  own  personality  in  relation  to 
others. 

A  present  duty,  usually,  though  not  necessarily,  repre- 
sents a  state  of  the  self  to  be  realized,  because  not  now 
possessed,  which  seems  to  clash  with  some  present  incli- 
nation or  desire  springing  out  of  original  or  acquired 
organizations  of  activity.  To  act  along  the  line  of  what 
is  already  a  possession  of  the  self,  be  it  instinct  or  habit, 
is  easy  and  pleasurable,  while  the  new  act  proposed  by 
the  specific  duty  often  seems  to  require  an  effort  directed 
against  present  tendencies.  A  duty  blocks  the  way  for- 
ward and  inhibits  the  self's  action  to  escape  by  some  other 
path.  It  is  also  relatively  stern  and  cold.  The  warmth 
and  glow  are  on  the  side  of  the  self  as  it  is.  Of  course, 
the  duty  may  be  done  with  inclination  and  with  a  glow 
of  emotion  accompanying  approval,  but,  then,  it  is  ceas- 
ing to  be  a  duty  by  becoming  a  virtue,  since  the  self  is  iden- 
tified with  it.  To  accomplish  the  duty  is  to  gain  a  certain 
amount  of  freedom  by  clearing  the  road  forward  for  the 
next  step.  A  duty  accomplished  exalts;  a  duty,  undone, 
subordinates  the  whole  self  to  an  over-ambitious  partial 
self. 

36.  The  painful  character  of  duty  just  referred  to 
is  significant.  Whoever  feels  it  to  be  a  duty  to  be  hon- 
est, requiring  effort,  is  in  an  undeveloped  condition. 
He  is  a  divided  self,  tempted  not  to  be  honest.  The  sense 
of  duty,  under  such  circumstances,,  condemns  us  to  our- 
selves. Indeed,  it  is  a  "moral  duty  not  to  be  moral,"  69 
that  is,  to  pass  beyond  the  sense  of  duty  which  means  to  be 
so  established  in  the  habit  of  honesty,  for  example,  that 
the  thought  of  it  as  a  duty  will  not  occur  to  us  but  the 
honest  deed  follows  as  a  matter  of  course.  This  is  to 
have  the  virtue  of  honesty — a  formed  habit  of  choosing 
and  acting  honestly  implying  the  absence  of  any  special 
reflection  upon  the  quality  of  the  act  as  something  to  be 
attained.  Consequently,  the  state  in  which  the  act  is 


DUTIES    AND    VIRTUES  73 

done  with  effort  from  a  sense  of  duty  is  an  undeveloped, 
painful  condition,  almost  humiliating,  indeed,  as  Kant 
says,  crushing  self-esteem,  because  it  condemns  and  cries 
loudly  for  a  new  and  better  self  reconstructed  and  ad- 
justed to  the  proposed  new  mode  of  conduct. 

A  difficult  question  now  arises  as  to  whether  one  may 
not  also  be  inclined,  and  desire,  to  do  the  act,  yet  feel  it 
a  duty  in  the  moment  of  acting.  In  other  words,  may  not 
one  sometimes  gladly  and  willingly  do  what  ought  to  be 
done,  and  yet  do  it  with  a  sense  of  duty?  Of  course, 
the  thing  of  importance  is  to  do  the  act  required  by  the 
ideal  good  of  the  self,  but  this  leaves  it  open  to  say,  the  act, 
then,  is  merely  what  Kant  meant  by  legal,  the  objectively 
fit,  but  is  not  done  from  the  sense  of  duty.  The  difficulty 
disappears  if  we  determine  what  the  inclination  and  desire 
are  with  which  the  feeling  of  duty  is  supposed  to  clash. 
One  may  be  hungry  and  desire  to  eat  at  once  all  the  food 
possessed,  but  the  same  person  expects  to  live  and  eat 
to-morrow  and  may  feel  it  a  duty  and  desire  to  save  part 
of  the  food  for  the  next  day.  One  may  be  inclined  to 
amusements  yet  also  desire  to  read  a  good  book  but  both 
at  the  same  time  are  impossible.  The  rejection  of  the 
one  in  favor  of  the  other  does  not  make  the  other  any 
the  less  desired.  In  this  sense,  one  might  say  nothing  can 
appear  a  duty  unless  it  accords  with  inclination  and  desire 
which,  indeed,  here  mean  those  that  can  prevail  only  when 
others  are  overcome.  Any  duty  would  then  be  a  form  of 
the  conative  life-impulse  seeking  fulfillment.  But,  more 
precisely,  the  quality  of  the  sense  of  duty  is  somewhat 
different  where  there  is  a  pronounced  clash  with  inclina- 
tion and  desire  where  there  is  not.  In  the  latter  case,  one 
does  not  act  so  much  from  a  sense  of  duty  as  from  an 
appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  act,  as  good  and  attract- 
ive, to  which  one  gladly  commits  himself,  distinguishing 
it  from  the  quality  of  the  feeling  of  duty  where  there  is 
a  marked  clash  with  inclination  and  desire  which  are  im- 
mediate in  their  demands  upon  the  self.70 


74  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

There  are,  however,  crises  in  which  failure  to  act  for 
the  sake  of  duty  would  be  a  spiritual  disaster.  Such 
cases  are,  however,  on  the  frontier  of  the  advancing  life 
and,  since  there  is  always  a  frontier,  the  sense  of  duty  is 
seldom,  if  ever,  absent  in  growing  experience.  But, 
while  these  instances  show  that  the  self  is  undeveloped  in 
those  directions,  it  is  only  fair  to  acknowledge  that  there 
has  been  neither  time  nor  opportunity  to  establish  the  vir- 
tues that  apply  to  such  unique  situations,  assuming  that, 
had  there  been,  the  required  virtues  would  have  been  de- 
veloped. The  case  is  different,  however,  with  the  one 
who,  no  matter  how  often  called  upon  to  meet  like  occa- 
sions, never  can  do  what  is  required  without  a  distressing 
sense  of  duty  and  effort.  He  is  "unstable  as  water  .  .  . 
and  shall  not  excel"  (Gen.  49:40).  He  is  an  "unstead- 
fast  soul"  (II  Peter  2:14),  incapable  of  gaining  the  vir- 
tues required  by  recurring  situations.  Usually,  however, 
there  is  a  hopeful  feature  of  the  clash  between  the  sense 
of  duty  and  inclination,  for  it  is  then  evident  that  the 
self  is  capable  of  acquiring  fixed  modes  of  action  which 
may,  indeed,  resist  modification,  yet  this  relatively  un- 
yielding organization  of  the  self  has  greater  possibilities 
for  good  than  a  loose  and  fluid  life  in  which  change  in  one 
direction  is  as  easy  as  in  another.  Between  such  ex- 
tremes is  the  growing  self  conserving  in  character  what 
promotes  well-being,  yet  open  to  the  new  advances  that 
development  requires. 

Every  sense  of  duty  is  also  a  confession  of  ignorance, 
for  it  implies  the  new  and  untried.  This  seems  to  mean 
that  the  familiar  and  tried  are  the  known.  If  so,  cannot 
the  same  act  be  repeatedly  a  duty  and  hence  duty  is  not  a 
confession  of  ignorance?  This,  however,  is  too  easy  a 
solution  of  the  problem.  Surely  the  act  required  by  duty 
is  new  and  not  strictly  the  same  as  any  former  act  each 
of  which  has  modified  both  the  subject  and  the  environ- 
ment. It  is  true  that  the  principle  of  a  duty  may  have 
been  frequently  verified  by  its  beneficent  consequences 


DUTIES    AND    VIRTUES  75 

in  the  experiences  of  the  self  and  others,  and  yet  the 
changes  taking  place  render  what  seems  to  be  a  specific 
duty,  whether  familiar  or  new,  more  or  less  a  tentative 
hypothesis  of  action  needing  to  be  confirmed  by  results. 
Changes  often  destroy  the  duty  altogether.  For  ex- 
ample, many  a  parent  considers  it  a  duty  to  do  much  for 
the  child  with  the  consequence  that  the  child  becomes  self- 
ish, and  later  the  parent  repents  doing  what  seemed  duty. 
People  are  often  mistaken  as  to  their  duty.  There  is 
always  the  possibility  that  another  alternative  might  have 
resulted  in  larger  good  than  the  one  chosen  as  obligatory. 
We  are  partly  blind  even  in  the  light  of  conscience  which, 
however,  like  a  candle,  is  apt  to  show  only  the  objects 
nearest  and  largest  in  our  affections  and  interests,  power- 
less to  reveal  what  lies  a  little  farther  on  than  we  have  yet 
gone  which  may  be  our  true  good.  The  sense  of  duty 
is  always  a  mark  of  limitations.  God  has  no  duties  but 
the  free  active  possession  of  the  perfect  good. 

Moreover,  our  duties  may  change  their  significance. 
What,  for  example,  is  brotherly  love  ?  After  centuries  of 
reflection  on  the  question:  Who  is  my  brother? — How 
should  brotherly  love  be  shown? — there  is  still  no  very 
satisfactory  answer.  Brotherly  love  is  not  mere  senti- 
ment or  instinctive  sympathy.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
duty  to  be  just.  Strictly  justice  means  right  with  es- 
tablished law  and  order.  But  whence  the  law  and  what 
does  it  mean  ?  Who  now  dare  say  what  justice  is  in  view 
of  the  horrors  of  war  between  the  most  Christian  na- 
tions in  the  sacred  name  of  Justice?  Its  serene  beauty 
was  the  theme  of  Plato  but  he  lived  in  the  innocency  of 
the  race  and  now  his  vision  of  Justice  appears  a  poet's 
dream.  Justice  is  evidently  an  ideal  of  human  welfare 
whose  definite  significance  is  being  wrought  out  in  the 
complex  life  of  humanity  whose  full  meaning  no  one  ade- 
quately interprets  but  implicitly  trusts. 

Duties  also  multiply  in  number  and  in  quality.  Every 
act  in  fulfillment  of  a  duty  creates  new  duties  of  different 


76  MORAL    LIFE    A!NT>    RELIGION 

kinds.  Some  even  base  the  hope  of  immortality  upon  tha 
ever  increasing  scope  and  significance  of  duties,  for  there 
can  be  no  last  moral  act.  For  example,  a  kindness  may 
win  a  friend,  and  to  maintain  the  friendship  an  indefinite 
number  and  variety  of  other  acts  become  obligatory,  each 
deed  strengthening  the  friendship  and  deepening  the  sig- 
nificance of  each  duty  that  arises.  Where  is  this  growth, 
this  deepening  significance  of  duties  to  end,  if  not  at  the 
limits  of  our  capacities  ?  Is  it,  then,  a  duty  to  recognize 
our  limitations  and  withdraw  from  kindly  impulses  lest 
they  increase  our  friendships  and  so  overburden  us  with 
new  duties  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  circle  of  friends  is 
often  purposely  restricted  evidently  from  a  vague  fear  of 
self-reproach  because  of  neglected  obligations.  Only  a 
divine  Being  seems  able  to  love  all  men  and  to  assume 
the  burden  of  their  friendship  even  to  the  laying  down  of 
life. 

37.  Each  person's  duties  grow  out  of  his  own  individ- 
uality in  relation  to  the  environment  and  no  one  else  is 
precisely  so  obligated.  The  sensible  man  avoids  positions 
whose  duties  his  individuality  renders  him  unable  to  ful- 
fill. Happy  the  man  who  has  found  and  knows  his  place 
for  whose  duties  he  is  relatively  adequate !  Happy  the 
man,  as  Democritus  said,  "who  has  himself  so  well  in 
hand  that  even  when  fortune  comes  his  way  and  is  ap- 
parently, though  not  really,  ready  to  lead  him  on  to  higher 
things,  he  is  able  to  put  her  aside  and  not  over-reach  his 
powers."71  Our  duties  are  limited  by  the  exigencies  of 
our  individuality.  This  justifies  refusal  to  be  obligated 
by  what  another  would  impose  as  duties  which  grow  out 
of  the  autoitomy  of  the  rational  will  as  each  works  out  his 
own  self-hood  in  a  definite  sphere,  all  being  "fitly  framed 
together,  growing  into  a  holy  temple  in  the  Lord"  (Eph. 
2:21). 

The  uniqueness  of  personal  duties  meets  an  obstacle 
in  the  assumed  right  of  one  person  to  dictate  another's 
duties  as  in  the  relation  of  parent  to  child,  of  one  neighbor 


DUTIES    AND    VIRTUES  77 

to  another,  or  of  a  pastor  to  the  members  of  his  church. 
The  solution  of  this  problem  requires  certain  distinctions 
such  as  the  subjective  and  objective  aspects  of  duty,  the 
objective  only  being  accessible  to  the  adviser  who  may 
be  able  to  see  more  or  less  clearly  the  deed  required  by 
the  place  in  "the  holy  temple  of  the  Lord"  occupied 
by  the  axlvised.  The  child  also  has  not  yet  attained  the 
personal  initiative  which  the  subjective  sense  of  duty  im- 
plies and  is  still  undifferentiated  from  the  ties  of  the  fam- 
ily and  group.  Where  the  adviser  and  advised  are  both  re- 
sponsible persons,  one's  declaration  of  the  other's  duty 
concerns  the  objective  relations  of  the  act  and  can  never 
be  more  than  a  proposal,  to  be  accepted  or  rejected  by  the 
other,  but  powerful,  for  it  is  a  form  of  public  opinion 
which  is  a  factor  in  the  authority  of  duty  because  it  rep- 
resents the  deeper,  broader,  more  enduring  series  of  psych- 
ical causes  of  which  the  individual  is  also  an  expression. 
But  care  is  needed  in  this  counselling  one  of  another,  for 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  compulsory  morality  and  the 
adviser  is  always  in  danger  of  reading  another's  duty  in 
terms  of  his  own.  The  individual  may  always  with  good 
reason  assert  that  his  duties  are  personal  and  unique. 

"On  the  side  of  self-imposed  ideals,  an  enormous 
amount  of  distress  and  waste  effort  has  been  due  to  the 
feeling  that  we  ought  to  aim  at  something  which  we  may 
admire,  apart  from  the  question  whether  we  are  person- 
ally fitted  for  its  attainment,  or  capable  of  taking  real 
satisfaction  in  the  life  for  which  it  calls.  ...  To  dis- 
cover my  own  duty,  I  must  study  my  own  constitution 
and  desires ;  and  the  only  final  test  that  I  am  succeeding 
is,  not  consistency  with  some  concrete  objective  standard 
capable  of  being  determined  by  everyone  alike  by  reason- 
ing it  out,  but  my  own  satisfaction  and  assured  content 
in  the  outcome."  72  Here  again  we  fall  back  upon  the  as- 
sumed identity  between  the  individual  and  the  race  and 
upon  the  ultimate  trustworthiness  of  their  development,  an 
identity-,  indeed,  amidst  personal  differences,  a  unity  of 


78  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

meaning  distributively  realized  in  individuals  who  are 
ends-in-themselves,  members  one  of  another,  and  whose 
duties  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  either  higher  or  lower  in 
the  unity  which  they  form. 

The  universal  aspect  of  our  duties  can  only  be  con- 
ceptual in  character.  The  subjective  and  objective 
uniqueness  of  specific  duties,  like  the  obligation  to  tell 
the  truth  and  the  truth-telling  act,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  conditioned  by  certain  feelings,  hopes,  aspirations,  and 
satisfactions  that  render  the  act  a  special  event  which  can- 
not be  duplicated  by  others,  nor  even  repeated  in  the  same 
person's  experience.  Besides,  the  objective  uniqueness  of 
every  duty  is  shown  by  its  fragmentary  character,  for 
example:  What  is  told  is  not  all  the  truth,  nor  could  a 
finite  being  tell  all  the  truth  about  anything ;  the  only  con>< 
pleteness  about  the  act  is  the  subject's  spirit  of  truth-tell- 
ing, and  even  this  is  open  to  question,  for  much  depends 
upon  the  hearer.  To  utter  true  words  with  the  best  in- 
tention is  not  always  to  tell  the  truth,  for  they  may  give 
a  false  impression.  Does  one  tell  the  truth  when  he  is 
not  understood  ? — or,  when  he  fails  to  convince  the  other 
that  it  is  the  truth  ?  In  fact,  truthfulness  is  vastly  more 
than  true  words.  Stevenson  somewhere  beautifully  shows 
that  it  is  an  established  dependableness  between  persons 
who  understand  each  other  with  the  understanding  that 
love  and  trust  create.  Then  words  are  not  necessary. 
Action  is  possible  with  unshaken  confidence  in  each  other 
which  is  the  highest,  perhaps  the  only  form  of  truthful- 
ness. How  evident,  therefore,  is  the  subjective  and  ob- 
jective uniqueness  of  our  duties  and  their  fulfillment 
since  they  finally  involve  the  personal  relations  of  love, 
trust  and  cooperation ! 

Until  our  duties  are  carried  out  to  the  satisfaction  of 
those  whom  they  concern,  they  are  not  really  accomplished 
and  probably  have  in  some  measure  been  inadquately 
conceived  as  to  the  end  and  means  by  the  agent  or  by 
others.  Of  course,  it  is  implied  that  he  to  whom  the  duty 


DUTIES    AND   VIRTUES  79 

is  owed  should  be  accurate  to  conceive  and  quick  to  recog- 
nize its  fulfillment.  Otherwise  the  unresponsiveness,  per- 
haps the  insatiability,  of  those  who  have  a  claim  upon  us 
impose  a  heavy  burden,  for  we  may  ourselves  believe  that 
we  have  done  our  duty,  and  yet  we  must  not  forget  that 
love  is  the  true  fulfillment  of  duty.  The  basis  of  what- 
ever universality  duties  possess  is,  therefore,  to  be  found 
in  both  their  conceptual  aspects  and  more  especially  in 
the  experiential  dependable  personal  relations  which  they 
tend  to  establish.  The  universality  of  specific  duties, 
if  such  an  expression  is  allowable,  really  means  their 
bearing  upon  the  common  welfare.  Consequently,  when 
we  require  each  other  to  be,  for  example,  truthful  and  hon- 
est, the  act  in  the  individual's  experience  is,  indeed, 
unique  but  its  meaning  is  that  only  through  faithful  per- 
formance of  duties  rising  out  of  personal  relations  can 
the  general  welfare  be  gained.  This  is  the  significance  of 
every  appeal  to  do  what  we  individually  conceive  to  be  our 
personal  duties.73 

38.  Our  specific  duties,  indescribable  in  detail,  cul- 
minate in  the  duty  to  be  virtuous  which  means  to  acquire 
a  steadfast  character  that  readily  responds  to  our  relations 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  promote  the  welfare  of  self  and 
others.  How  suggestive  is  Aristotle's  definition  of  virtue 
as  "that  trained  faculty  of  choice,  the  characteristic  of 
which  lies  in  observing  the  mean  relative  to  the  persons 
concerned  and  which  is  guided  by  reason,  that  is,  by  the 
judgment  of  the  prudent  man"  (Ethics  II.  6)  !  This 
conception  of  virtue  means  that  a  person  becomes  so  trained 
that  he  readily  chooses  in  changing  situations  the  reason- 
able and  so  right  thing  to  do.  It  implies  a  dependable- 
ness  of  choice  of  the  action  most  suitable  in  complex  re- 
lations. It  invites  the  confidence  felt  towards  those 
who  redeem  critical  situations  and  lead  others  into  safe 
courses  by  their  wise  judgment  and  adequate  action. 
"The  virtues  are  those  habitual  forms  of  conduct  which  re- 
alize the  conception  of  the  better  and  nobler  self."  Among 


80  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 


the  Greeks  dyatfo?  expressed  the  most  fundamental  personal 
characteristics,  d/oer^  is  that  which  is  best  for  a  man 
(apio-ros).  To  be  bad,  vicious  and  unworthy  to  be 
called  a  man  is  to  be  without  these  characteristics.  Under 
the  influence  of  religion,  the  idea  of  stain  and  defilement 
became  more  emphatic.  The  man  who  is  bad  (/teAas- 
black)  has  a  darkened  and  soiled  self  -hood.74 

Light  is  thrown  upon  the  nature  of  virtue  by  its  rela- 
tion to  duty.  The  youth's  maturing  powers  foreshadow 
their  functioning  in  the  consciousness  of  duties  relating, 
for  example,  to  choice  of  friends,  studies  and  vocation. 
Every  decision  eliminates  possibilities  by  tending  to  fix  the 
course  of  life.  The  issue  is  sure  to  be  a  definitely  formed 
self  restricted  to  a  sphere  of  activity  which  can  belong  to 
no  other.  The  relation  between  duties  and  virtues  may 
be  sharply  expressed  by  saying  that  we  may  escape  our 
duties  by  transforming  them  into  virtues.  Until  this  is 
done,  a  duty  is  usually  a  challenge,  a  foreign  element, 
often  accompanied  by  a  painful  sense  of  obligation  and 
approval  of  what  is  proposed  but  disapproval  of  the  self 
because  it  is  not  yet  in  harmony  with  the  demand,  with 
some  regret  that  other  courses  of  action  have  to  be  sur- 
rendered. That  there  are  also  duties  which  are  wel- 
comed and  willingly  done  has  been  granted  (sec.  37), 
though  in  such  cases  it  seems  better  to  say,  one  acts  from 
appreciation  of  value  instead  of  a  sense  of  obligation. 
In  proportion  as  the  self  becomes  organized  along  lines 
of  action  that  promote  well-being,  the  divided  self  be- 
comes a  unity  freed  from  the  conflict  often  present  with 
the  sense  of  duty.  Then  peace,  constancy,  efficiency  and 
satisfaction  become  possible.  This  is  why  youth  is  often 
so  stormy,  ambitious  and  yet  unhappy,  while  maturity 
and  old  age  are  relatively  peaceful  and  hopeful  with  sat- 
isfying adequacy  for  what  is  required.  In  this  sense, 
the  virtuous  good  man  is  like  the  child  before  the  un- 
quietness  of  youth  arrives.  He  is  born  again  with  the 
child's  spontaneous  response  to  the  environment  but  with 


DUTIES    AND    VIRTUES  81 

the  difference  that  acts  and  methods  are  the  result  of  ex- 
perience rather  than  of  inherited  capacities.  Such  have 
entered  into  the  kingdom  of  virtuous  attainment. 

Virtue  also  implies  habitual,  satisfying  activity.  Aris- 
totle warns  against  regarding  the  sleeping,  that  is,  the 
passive,  man  as  virtuous.  It  is  rather  the  man  acting, 
and  doing  what  he  has  to  do  with  skill  and  adequateness. 
The  virtue  of  a  carpenter  is  in  his  carpentry,  and  of  an 
eye  in  its  vision.  Likewise  the  virtuous  man  acts  in  a 
characteristic  way,  exercising  the  soul's  powers  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  take  pleasure  in  noble  deeds  because  his 
faculties  are  performing  their  function  in  accordance  with 
their  true  excellence.  Such  virtuous  action  has  no  re- 
grets for  the  past  nor  hope  of  reward  but  is  satisfied  to  be 
itself.  The  good  man  finds  his  happiness  in  his  action. 
The  Aristotelian  virtues  of  bravery,  liberality,  highmind- 
edness,  wisdom,  gentleness,  truthfulness,  justice,  mean 
that  the  good  man  makes  an  unhesitating  and  appropriate 
response  to  demands  made  upon  him,  since  hindrances 
have  been  overcome  so  that  his  life  steadily  produces  these 
pleasing  experiences.  There  is  no  regretful  backward 
look,  no  acting  a  part  for  the  sake  of  future  praise.  Vir- 
tue is  its  own  reward. 

Surely  the  Aristotelian  conception  of  goodness  is  noble. 
It  is  like  that  of  the  Apostle  who  declares  that  "the  fruit 
of  the  spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  longsuffering,  kindness, 
goodness,  faithfulness,  meekness,  self -control"  (Gal.  5 : 
21  f.).  These  are  fruits,  active  states  of  the  soul  requir- 
ing but  to  be  experienced.  ~No  virtue  is  a  foreign  element 
transferred  into  the  soul-life.  The  feeling,  the  will,  the 
knowledge,  the  love  of  the  act  constitute  the  virtue  and 
render  the  personality  rich  in  goodness.  The  Aristotelian 
and  apostolic  conception  of  the  virtues  implies  that  the 
good  man  will  love  himself  and  act  in  view  of  what  he  is 
and,  by  so  doing,  he  will  at  the  same  time  love  and  benefit 
others.  This  topic  is  so  important  that  it  is  reserved  for 
the  next  chapter. 


82  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

Since  virtues  imply  direct  relations  to  duties,  and  since 
they  are  formed  habits  of  choice  in  response  to  the  com- 
mon good,  they  may  not  be  present,  though  the  duty  is  rec- 
ognized. The  uniqueness  of  duties  renders  it  impossible 
to  classify  their  corresponding  virtues.  The  different 
capacities  of  individuals,  and  their  circumstances,  impose 
special  duties,  "and  exact  different  virtues  and  yet  one 
person  is  not  more  or  less  virtuous  than  another  because 
his  virtues  take  a  different  form/7  75  nor  one  virtue  better 
than  another.  The  ancient  conception  of  the  unity  of  the 
virtues  contains  an  important  truth,  namely,  that  the  vir- 
tuous character  is  a  unity  possessing  different  but  insepar- 
able aspects  which  must  each  be  present  if  the  character  is 
properly  decribed  as  virtuous.  It  is  to  be  remembered 
that  we  are  dealing  with  a  living  process  that  may  be  vari- 
ously described  but  the  features  of  the  character  corre- 
sponding to  the  descriptive  terms  are  the  living  process 
itself.  This  unity  of  the  virtuous  life  may  be  designated 
as  a  unity  of  temperance,  courage,  justice,  and  wisdom. 
Temperance  implies  a  harmony  of  the  desires  with  the 
ideal  of  reason,  the  moderation  of  each  act  in  view  of 
what  goes  before  and  of  what  is  to  follow,  purity,  control 
of  passion  so  as  to  prevent  attention  being  absorbed  by  some 
end  to  the  neglect  of  others  that  have  equal  claim  to  be 
heeded,  also  reverence  for  the  situation  in  which  one  is 
and  for  the  wide  significance  of  the  act  to  be  done;  cour- 
age or  fortitude  in  the  face  of  what  is  hard  and  unpleas- 
ant, or  to  withstand  the  pleasurable  either  in  the  one 
case  repelling  or  in  the  other  enticing  from  what  reflection 
upon  the  self  and  the  situation  reveals  as  required  by  the 
ideal  of  the  highest  good;  courage  which  is  the  energetic, 
effective  aspect  of  the  executive  will,  courage  to  know  the 
hard  facts  and  yet  to  commit  the  will  to  belief  in  the 
supremacy  of  good ;  justice  as  what  is  due  in  the  personal 
ordering  of  the  inner  life  and  in  relation  to  others,  and 
wisdom  or  conscientiousness  which  is  "that  voluntary  atti- 
tude interested  in  discovering  ...  the  good  of  conduct" 


DUTIES   AND    VIRTUES  83 

requiring  a  tender  conscience  immediately  responsive  to 
the  presentation  of  good  and  evil,  and  thoughtfulness  in 
which  the  subject  acquires  the  habit  of  judging  moral 
situations  with  increasing  accuracy  and  appreciation  of 
the  importance  and  ideality  of  the  act  to  be  done.  But 
thoughtfulness  must  be  supplemented  by  resolute  courage 
of  the  will  to  face  evil  in  behalf  of  the  end  conceived  as 
good  upon  which  the  affections  involving  the  entire  self 
are  concentrated.76  Any  personality  thus  conditioned  is 
sure  to  progress  in  the  attainment  of  true  well-being  and 
at  the  same  time  be  an  efficient  factor  in  promoting 
human  welfare,  as  will  be  shown  more  fully  in  the  suc- 
ceeding chapters. 


CHAPTER  VI 
GOODNESS  AND  SELF-SACRIFICE 

39.  The  conception  of  goodness,  already  presented,  as 
the  development,  the  realization  of  the  self's  capacities, 
should  not  be  identified  with  egoism  and  made  to  conflict 
with  the  interests  of  others.  Instead,  goodness  implies 
that  the  true  love  of  self  is  identical  with  the  love  of 
others. 

Recently  the  emphasis  upon  the  biological  and  psycho- 
logical aspects  of  society  has  done  much  to  reveal  unity 
of  interests  at  least  within  the  same  community,  if  not 
between  communities  and  nations.  But  there  are  occa- 
sions when  this  common  welfare  of  all  appears  doubtful. 
In  other  words,  self-sacrifice  in  the  sense  of  "diminution 
of  possessions,  pleasures,  or  powers  in  order  to  increase 
those  of  others"  77  seems  to  require  interpretation,  if  a 
gulf  is  not  to  be  fixed  between  the  self  and  others. 

Moral  theories  of  pure  egoism  assert  that  it  is  morally 
necessary  to  make  individual  welfare  the  sole  end  of  ac- 
tion and  that  it  is  right  to  pursue  only  one's  own  good. 
Thus  each  best  serves  others,  for  individual  good  is  as- 
sumed to  mean  the  general  good.  Pure  egoism  is  also 
logically  possible,  for  a  society  is  conceivable  in  which 
everyone  acts  solely  for  his  own  ends.  Likewise,  there 
are  moral  theories  based  on  pure  altruism  which  sets  up 
the  principle  that  acts  have  moral  worth  only  in  so  far  as 
they  are  determined  by  purely  altruistic  motives,  the  weal 
or  woe  of  others.  Schopenhauer,  for  example,  advocates 
altruism  in  extreme  form  holding  that  the  motive  of  an 
act  must  be  the  welfare  of  another,  if  the  act  is  to  have 
moral  worth.  Otherwise  the  act  is  egoistic  and  bad. 

This  agrees  with  the  popular  use  of  the  word,   selfish, 

84 


GOODNESS   AND    SELF-SACRIFICE  85 

which  implies  blame,  and  unselfish  which  carries  with  it 
approval.  To  such  theories,  the  egoist  replies  that  pure 
altruism  is  inconceivable  and  absurd  for,  if  each  cares 
only  for  the  interests  of  others  and  never  for  his  own, 
such  an  exchange  of  interests  would  result  as  to  make 
collective  life  unthinkable.78 

This  controversy  involves  three  questions:  first, 
whether  or  not  the  motive  of  every  act  is  self-interest; 
secondly,  whether  egoism  and  altruism  are  contradictories ; 
and,  thirdly,  what  is  the  proper  moral  interpretation  of 
the  fact.  The  question  whether  the  motive  of  every  act 
is  self-interest  concerns  the  reality  of  self-sacrifice  in  the 
sense  of  "diminution  of  possessions,  pleasures,  or  powers 
in  order  to  increase  those  of  others."  There  are  four 
historical  forms  of  the  argument  in  support  of  a  denial  of 
genuine  self-sacrifice.  First,  the  psychological  impossi- 
bility of  sacrificing  one's  own  interest  for  that  of  another, 
for  one  acts  always  for  some  desired  end  or  personal  inter- 
est whether  one  promotes  the  welfare  of  relative,  friend, 
community,  church,  state,  nation,  humanity,  or  strives  to 
be  virtuous.  Secondly,  if  an  act  for  the  sake  of  another 
with  loss  to  the  self  takes  place,  it  is  a  necessity  due  to 
limitations.  The  real  spring  of  action  is  pure  self-inter- 
est, as  Hobbes  and  others  showed,  but  we  are  forced  to 
suffer  the  loss  of  what  we  would  have  if  we  could.  It  is, 
indeed,  self-sacrifice,  but  there  is  no  glory  in  it,  only  hard 
necessity.  The  motive  is  unsatisfied  self-interest. 
Thirdly,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  there  is  any  per- 
sonal loss  in  promoting  another's  good  apparently  at  the 
cost  of  one's  own,  for  the  larger  self  is  to  be  found  only  in 
fellowship  with  others.  Once  more  it  is  self-interest 
which  is  the  motive,  for  everyone  gains  instead  of  loses  by 
identifying  himself  with  the  life  of  the  community. 
Lastly,  self-sacrifice  in  the  sense  of  personal  loss  for  the 
sake  of  others,  whenever  it  occurs,  is  a  kind  of  glorious 
madness,  mysterious,  irrational,  but  heroic  imprudence. 
The  rational  man  does  not  so  act,  for  there  is  no  obliga- 


86  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

tion  to  do  such  deeds  which  are  not  so  much  below  as 
above  the  level  of  human  life.79 

40.  Do  the  above  objections  prove  that  real  altruistic 
action  is  impossible?  What  of  the  apparently  genuine 
self-sacrifice  for  the  welfare  of  others  and  for  the  sake  of 
ideals  which  seems  to  be  of  daily  occurrence  in  the  home, 
the  school,  the  church,  the  community,  on  the  battlefield 
and  in  one's  inner  life  when  some  great  surrender  is  made 
in  behalf  of  a  vague  ideal,  like  the  ultimate  well-being  of 
humanity  ?  It  seems  unfair  to  say  that  such  acts  are 
done  for  the  sake  of  self-interest  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
the  term. 

It  is  only  necessary  to  recall  what  has  been  said  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  self  striving  to  conserve  and 
promote  well-being  by  appropriate  responses  to  the  envi- 
ronment and  to  follow  its  history  to  discover  the  intrinsic 
unity  of  egoism  and  altruism.  The  individual  begins, 
indeed,  with  the  "coarser"  instincts  and  emotions  dom- 
inant, rendering  the  life  self-centred,  but  later  other  ten- 
dencies appear  as  the  psycho-physical  organism  matures. 
At  first  there  is  no  very  clear  distinction  of  self  from 
others;  indeed,  it  is  held  that  the  consciousness  of  others 
is  prior  to  that  of  self,  for  the  child's  needs  are  satisfied 
only  by  others  who  assume  importance  as  the  source  of 
satisfaction  which  is  withheld  or  given  in  a  most  perplex- 
ing manner.  Others  are  instinctively  feared,  loved, 
watched,  with  a  vague  belief  in  their  reality  which  is 
intensified  by  their  action,  command  or  the  information 
imparted.  In  the  presence  of  some  persons  whose  real- 
ness  is  over-powering,  the  self  seems  as  nothing.  This 
belief  in  the  reality  of  others  is  not  primarily  by  analogy 
with  ourselves  but  seems  to  be  immediate  awareness  of 
their  presence,  "social  immediacy,"  as  Coe  says.  "The 
smallest  known  unit  of  personality  is  three,  father,  mother, 
child  ....  While  it  is  true  that  the  ties  of  parentage 
loosen  as  the  child  matures,  these  drop  away  only  because 
others,  now  more  formative,  take  him  in  charge.  Before 


GOODNESS    AND    SELF-SACKIFICE  87 

we  have  a  separate  consciousness  we  know  ourselves  as 
members  of  a  family,  of  a  state,  of  the  community  of 
human  kind.  We  never  stand  alone"  (Palmer,  Altruism, 
P.  9).  This  direct  apprehension  of  the  being  of  others 
is  also  supplemented  by  the  use  of  analogy  between  their 
acts  and  our  own  whereby  we  know  them  as  agents  like 
ourselves. 

After  the  individual  has  become  differentiated  from 
others  through  personal  initiative  of  feeling,  thought,  and 
action,  a  transition  from  individual  to  social  consciousness 
begins  culminating  in  a  more  clearly  recognized  unity  of 
each  with  all.  The  beginning  of  this  transition  is  pro- 
vided for  by  primary  organizations  and  "psycho-physical 
predispositions"  which  make  egoistic  and  altruistic  ac- 
tion equally  original,  simple  and  direct.  If  a  man  falls 
into  the  water,  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  expresses 
itself  in  efforts  to  get  out;  equally  direct  is  the  action  of 
the  one  who  jumps  in  to  save  the  other.  But  the  ex- 
periences of  the  two  are  different  in  quality.  Reflection 
may  follow  the  act  of  the  rescuer  but  does  not  necessarily 
precede  it.  Thus  the  instincts  of  self-preservation  and 
fellow-feeling  are  an  original  unity,  however  much  later 
ideas  and  feelings  may  either  broaden  and  deepen  this 
unity  or  cause  them  to  appear  radically  opposed.80 

The  unity  of  moral  ends  shows  the  true  relation  of  ego- 
ism and  altruism.  The  wider  view  of  motives  and  acts 
may,  indeed,  not  always  be  taken,  though  they  may  be  im- 
plicitly in  harmony  with  the  larger  social  and  humanitar- 
ian ends.  The  ideal  would  be  to  see  and  will  one's  acts  as 
having  a  bearing  upon  the  welfare  and  progress,  not  only 
of  one's  own  immediate  social  group,  but,  of  the  nation 
and  even  humanity.  Each  end  can  fulfill  itself  only  as 
it  fulfills  the  whole  being  realized  through  each  person.  In 
this  wider  significance  of  every  act,  the  primitive  impulses 
of  self-preservation  and  fellow-feeling  are  expressions  of 
the  psychical  causes  at  work  in  the  individual  and  the 
race.  Indeed,  there  are  reasons  why  sympathy  or  fel- 


88  MOEAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

low-feeling  may  be  regarded  as  the  deeper  tendency  of  in- 
dividual life,  for  the  individual,  even  in  acts  of  self -differ- 
entiation, is  the  later  expression  of  an  infinite  series  of 
psychical  causes  in  the  race-life  in  consequence  of  which 
every  individual  tendency  is  only  a  fragment  of  the  whole 
sure  to  return  again  to  the  level  of  the  onward  flow  of 
human  existence.  Hence  the  individual's  acts  are  ab- 
sorbed in  the  whole  and  have  worth  only  as  they  are 
judged  in  relation  to  the  ideal  of  humanity  according  to 
which  each  nation  and  age  is  to  be  judged  good  or  evil. 
Each  individual,  however  humbly  doing  what  is  required, 
contributes  to  these  larger  movements  which  it  is  the  pro- 
vince, especially,  of  the  leading  minds  to  perceive  and 
promote.81 

41.  It  is  now  evident  that  goodness  is  neither  egoistic 
nor  altruistic  but,  as  Palmer  says,  "mutuality  .  .  .  the 
recognition  of  another  and  myself  as  inseparable  elements 
of  one  another,  each  being  essential  to  the  welfare  of 
each"  (Altruism,  p.  YT).  Plato  speaks  of  the  good  man, 
even  in  a  bad  state,  as  exerting  a  saving  power,  since  ahe 
reflects  upon  all  this,  and  holds  his  peace,  and  does  his 
own  busine-ss.  He  is  like  (one  who  retires  under  the 
shadow  of  a  wall  in  the  storm  of  dust  and  sleet  which  the 
driving  wind  hurries  along;  and  when  he  sees  the  rest 
of  mankind  full  of  wickedness,  he  is  content  if  only  he 
can  live  his  own  life  and  be  pure  from  evil  and  unright- 
eousness, and  depart  in  peace  and  good  will,  with  bright 
hopes.  .  .  .  And  he  who  does  this  will  have  done  a  great 
work  before  he  departs  .  .  .  but  not  the  greatest  unless 
he  find  a  state  suitable  for  him"  (Republic  VI.  Par. 
496).  The  great  work  is  the  beneficence  of  goodness. 
Aristotle  emphasizes  the  same  truth,  for  his  conception 
of  virtue  implies  that  the  good  man  should  even  love  him- 
self and  that  by  doing  so  he  will  love  and  benefit  others. 
"It  is  then  clear,"  says  Aristotle,  "that  it  is  the  reason 
which,  if  not  entirely,  at  any  rate  most  especially,  con- 
stitutes each  man's  self;  and  it  is  this  which  the  good  man 


GOODNESS   AND    SELF-SACRIFICE  89 

most  especially  cherishes.  And  hence  it  is  the  good  man 
who,  most  of  all,  may  be  said  to  love  himself;  although 
his  self-love  is  entirely  of  another  kind  from  that  self- 
love  which  brings  reproach  upon  the  selfish  man,  and,  al- 
though he  differs  from  the  selfish  man  as  widely  as  the 
life  of  reason  differs  from  the  life  of  passion,  and  the 
desire  for  that  which  is  noble  differs  from  the  desire  for 
that  by  which  a  man  hopes  to  serve  his  own  private  ends. 
-  .  .  And  hence  it  follows  that  the  good  man  ought  to  be 
a  lover  of  himself,  inasmuch  as,  if  his  acts  be  noble,  he 
will  reap  good  fruit  for  himself  and  will  confer  great 
benefit  upon  others"  (Ethics.  IX.  8). 

This  is  like  Kant's  "rational  self-love"  which  destroys 
natural  self-esteem.  Such  self-love  is  the  love  of  the  spirit 
of  virtue  and  of  the  virtues.  Even  our  Lord  exhorts  us  to 
love  the  inner  righteousness,  and  the  Apostle's  message 
to  the  Galatians  (5:  21)  urges  them  to  love  and  cherish 
that  inward  life  which  bears  the  beneficent  fruit  of  the 
spirit.  The  Greek  and  the  Christian  virtues  are  at  least 
formally  identical  in  motive  and  content,  though  the  one 
may  be  less  complete  than  the  other. 

The  identity  between  the  welfare  of  the  self  and  that 
of  others  is  also  expressed  by  Aristotle  in  his  conception  of 
friendship  which  suggests  the  Christian's  love  of  the 
brethren.  Aristotle  shows  that  the  virtues  can  be  ac- 
quired only  through  the  aid  of  others  who  are  virtuous. 
The  good  man  needs  good  friends,  first,  because  "no  man 
would  choose  to  be  assured  in  the  possession  of  all  possible 
good  at  the  price  of  living  a  solitary  life" ;  and,  secondly, 
because  the  friend  is  a  second  self  the  value  of  whose 
friendship  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  presents  a  mirror  of  good 
actions  and  so  intensifies  his  friend's  appreciation  of  the 
virtuous  life.  The  good  man's  love  for  himself  is  identi- 
cal with  his  love  for  his  friend,  for  in  himself  and  in  his 
friend,  it  is  the  rational  nature  realized  in  the  virtues  that 
is  loved  (Ethics.  IX.  9,  10).  How  suggestive  of  St. 
John's  saying:  "We  know  that  we  have  passed  out  of 


90  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

death  into  life,  because  we  love  the  brethren"  (I  John. 
3:4).  Aristotle  expresses  the  same  thing  in  obverse  form 
when  he  says:  "Since  the  wicked  have  in  them  nothing 
that  calls  for  love,  they  can  feel  no  affection  towards  them- 
selves" and  towards  each  other.  As  the  Christian  believes 
his  love  of  the  brethren  is  due  to  the  indwelling  divine 
Spirit,  so  does  Aristotle  identify  the  rational  principle 
in  which  the  human  soul  essentially  consists  with  the  di- 
vine creative  Reason.  But  the  Christian  thought,  of 
course,  glows  with  devotion  to  Jesus  as  Savior,  while 
Aristotle's  love  of  virtue  and  the  virtuous  friend,  as  ex- 
pressions of  the  creative  Reason,  lacks  some  of  the  warm 
affection  that  characterizes  the  Christian  faith  (De  Anima. 
III.  5,  430  a  10.  Ethics:  X.  8.  9).  Nor  does  Aristotle 
seem  to  leave  much  room,  practically,  for  anything  like 
the  Christian's  love  of  one's  enemies. 

42.  Since  duties  and  virtues  are  finally  personal  re- 
lations, the  virtues  promote  mutual  confidence  and  co-op- 
eration. Until,  for  example,  the  virtue  of  truthfulness 
is  acquired,  there  is  room  for  partial  distrust  lest  the  truth 
be  not  certainly  told.  Our  duties  are  demands  that  we 
afford  a  basis  of  understanding  and  affection  for  others' 
action  which  can  be  depended  upon  in  time  of  need. 
Virtue  on  our  part  invites  and  claims  the  trust  of  others 
that  we  shall  do  and  be  always  what  is  implied  in  truthful- 
ness, wisdom,  justice,  temperance,  faithfulness  and  love. 
Every  virtue  possessed  is  a  rock  upon  which  others  may 
build.  This  rock  resists  time,  the  storms  of  passion,  the 
hardships  of  toil  and  the  enticements  of  pleasure. 

If  one  possesses  the  virtues,  he  will  cherish  them  in 
himself  out  of  love  for  his  fellows  because  he  knows  that 
these  virtues  invite  and  claim  their  trustful  action.  To 
use  the  language  of  religion,  we  confess  our  frailty  by 
finding  perfect  goodness  that  will  never  disappoint  only 
in  the  divine  Personality,  or,  as  Christians,  in  Jesus  whose 
excellence  so  far  surpasses  ours  that  we  regard  Him  as 
Divine.  What  a  comment  upon  the  nature  of  virtue  in 


GOODNESS   AND    SELF-SACRIFICE  91 

its  completeness  and  upon  human  frailty  in  the  effort 
to  be  virtuous !  And  so  we  confess  that  God  alone  is 
worthy  of  our  full  trust  and  love.  Still  we  do  trust  and 
act  with  reliance  upon  the  goodness  of  our  fellows,  for 
there  is  no  other  hond  of  social  unity  and  cooperation. 

This  reverence  for  virtue  is  found  at  all  levels  of  life 
but  what  is  approved  is  not  simply  that  one  is  brave,  skill- 
ful, constant,  self-controlled,  and  wise  in  his  special 
sphere,  but  he  shows  his  helpful  relationship  to  general 
well-being.  We  always  carry  over  this  recognition  of 
the  general  welfare  and  the  larger  good,  to  which  the  vir- 
tues minister,  to  the  single  virtues,  though  they  may  be 
temporarily  misapplied  in  the  service  of  an  unworthy  end, 
as  in  the  courage,  constancy  and  self-control  of  an  lago 
wiho  plots  the  ruin  of  Othello.  This  approval,  however, 
is  based  upon  the  assumption  that  the  virtues  in  their 
proper  relation  to  means  and  end  invariably  promote  well- 
being  both  of  the  one  who  is  virtuous  and  of  those  with 
whom  he  has  to  do. 

Because  of  the  realization  of  our  own  failures,  we  too 
often  dare  not  give,  nor  do  we  receive,  the  perfect  trust 
that  the  virtues  invite,  with  the  result  that  our  actions  are 
inhibited  and  hesitating.  We  even  suspect  ourselves  of 
being  in  danger  of  betraying  the  trust  of  others  just  when 
we  ought  to  be  strong  and  reliable.  This  lack  of  full 
confidence  in  ourselves  and  in  others  is  curiously  shown 
by  the  attitude  toward  praise  of  goodness  which  seems  to 
indicate  that  one  is  in  a  condition  that  should  be  trans- 
cended. Suppose,  for  example,  one  says  to  another: 
"You  deserve  to  be  praised  for  telling  the  truth,  or,  for 
your  noble  action."  Is  it  not  to  imply  a  certain  unstead- 
iness of  character,  for  it  seems  to  mean  that  the  unex- 
pected has  happened?  The  principle  is,  as  Aristotle  ex- 
pressed it:  "The  pleasure  or  pain  that  accompanies  the 
acts  must  be  taken  as  a  test  of  the  formed  habit  or  char- 
acter" (Ethics:  Bk.  2:1.  1).  And  yet  it  is  right  to 
praise  God  which  shows  that  we  recognize  a  supreme  ex- 


92  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

cellence.  We  should  have,  however,  not  vanity,  but  what 
Aristotle  called  highmindedness — a  just  appreciation  of 
one's  powers  as  adequate  to  worthy  and  great  objects  in 
life,  affording  dependable  personal  relations  inviting  mut- 
ual trust  and  confident  action.  The  firmly  established 
relation  of  husband  and  wife  based  upon  virtue,  love  and 
peace,  it  is  unsuitable  to  praise;  instead,  there  is  a  recog- 
nition of  excellence,  of  trust  and  mutual  dependence  in 
view  of  which  action  takes  place.  The  soldier's  supreme 
sacrifice  on  the  battlefield  is  revered  and  honored.  We  do, 
however,  rightly  desire  mutual  recognition  of  virtues. 
Through  sympathy,  the  social  instinct  of  gregariousness, 
and  retributive  kindly  emotion,  the  self  is  extended  to 
and  identified  with  others  whose  merit  is  recognized, 
making  praise,  in  this  sense,  of  a  worthy  deed,  an  aspect 
of  normal  self-satisfaction  in  accomplishing  good  ends 
to  be  loved  for  their  own  sakes  whether  in  the  self  or  in 
others.  In  this  better  sense,  praise  of  others  is  approval 
and  reveals  the  character  of  him  who  approves. 

43.  Our  conception  of  moral  goodness  transforms  self- 
sacrifice  into  self-assertion  for  .some  approved  end  in 
which  the  welfare  of  all  is  involved.  Leonidas  and  his 
J>and  fought  for  their  country  but,  of  course,  it  was 
their  country.  They  fell  for  their  own  glory  which  was 
that  of  Sparta.  Is  it  not  absurd  to  ask  whether  their 
motive  was  egoistic  or  altruistic?  Hence  "every  self- 
sacrifice  is  at  the  same  time  self-preservation  of  the  ideal 
self;  indeed,  it  is  the  proudest  kind  of  self-assertion  for 
me  to  sacrifice  myself,  for  me  to  stake  my  life,  in  battling 
for  a  good  which  I  esteem  higher  than  my  life.  .  .  .  The 
self  is  always  involved,  it  sacrifices  a  good  only  for  a 
higher  good,  possessions  for  fame,  a  good  name  for  a  good 
conscience,  life  for  the  freedom  and  honor  of  the  people. 
And  vice  versa,  the  traitor  sacrifices  his  friend  or  his 
reputation  or  his  people  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver;  he, 
too,  would  rather  have  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver  without 
the  sacrifice,"  8S 


GOODNESS   AND    SELF-SACRIFICE  93 

There  is  no  merit  in  sacrifice  as  such.  "Self-sacrifice 
is  noble  if  its  end  is  noble,  but  becomes  reprehensible 
when  its  object  is  petty  or  undeserving.  Omit  or  over- 
look that  word  for  (something)  and  self-sacrifice  loses 
its  exalted  character.  It  sinks  into  asceticism,  one  of  the 
most  degrading  of  moral  aberrations.  In  asceticism,  we 
prize  self-sacrifice  for  its  own  sake."  The  only  safe  rule, 
then,  is  that  self-sacrifice  is  self-assertion  and  its  worth 
depends  upon  its  object.  "The  act  is  not  complete  until 
the  sense  of  loss  has  disappeared."  83  One  is  just  that 
sort  of  self  as  to  do  that  sort  of  act  As  Jesus  said: 
"My  meat  it  is  to  do  the  will  of  my  Father"  which  is  a 
self-assertion  that  His  will  should  be  identical  with  that 
of  the  Father,  with  no  regrets  and  no  playing  a  part  for 
the  sake  of  reward  This  joy  and  peace  Jesus  longs 
that  His  followers  may  have  in  their  fellowship  in  His 
sufferings. 

44.  To  determine  the  moral  worth  of  sacrifice  as  self- 
assertion  for  some  end,  the  objective  magnitude  of  the 
interests  involved  and  the  efficiency  of  the  sacrifice  in 
relation  to  these  interests  must  be  considered.  Objec- 
tively the  order  of  preference  in  ascending  worth  is  indi- 
vidual, social,  and  humanitarian  ends,  but  efficiency  of 
sacrifice  generally  decreases  in  direct  proportion  to  the 
distance  between  the  benefactor  and  the  object  of  his 
interest,  giving  rise  to  what  Paulsen  calls  a  natural  hie- 
rarchy of  ends  in  which  every  ego  arranges  others  about 
itself  in  concentric  circles,  and  the  farther  away  the 
interests  from  this  centre  the  less  weight  and  motive 
force  they  possess.84  According  to  this  principle  of 
efficiency,  the  duties  that  concern  the  self,  one's  position 
and  calling  are  first,  then  duties  to  those  nearest  and 
dearest,  to  relatives  and  friends,  then  duties  to  those  more 
distant,  to  country  and  humanity.  Hence  the  order 
required  by  the  principle  of  efficiency  seems  to  be  the 
reverse  of  the  order  in  the  objective  worth  of  ends,  creat- 
ing the  difficult  task  of  determining  what  motives  should 


94  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

prevail  and  what  forms  of  sacrifice  will,  in  the  circum- 
stances, best  serve  human  welfare. 

It  is  always  debatable  whether,  considering  one's  capac- 
ities and  relations,  the  service  of  one's  self,  position  and 
calling,  immediate  family  or  community,  may  not  have 
precedence  over  more  remote  ends  such  as  a  mission  to 
the  heathen,  or  the  care  of  some  poor  unknown  person, 
because  the  efficiency  of  efforts  is  so  largely  determined 
by  personal  relations.  Besides,  we  often  do  not  know 
what  to  do  for  those  who  have  an  immediate  claim  upon 
us,  and  how  much  less  for  strangers,  although  ready  to 
do  much.  Usually  happiness  and  welfare  cannot  be  be- 
stowed, for  they  are  the  result  of  personal  effort  in  nor- 
mal conditions  but  how  much  more  difficult  the  task  when 
the  conditions  are  abnormal  and  those  receiving  aid  are 
the  unsuccessful  whom  no  assistance  can  keep  from  fail- 
ure. Here  are  limitations  requiring  a  high  degree  of 
tact,  love,  and  foresight  on  the  part  of  those  who  would 
be  benefactors. 

The  readiness,  the  motive  to  acts  of  sacrifice,  vary 
widely;  at  first,  the  interests  of  self  and  others  nearest 
appeal  most  strongly,  but,  since  each  is  a  link  in  an  end- 
less chain  of  psychical  causes  involving  the  entire  exist- 
ence of  mankind,  humanitarian  ends  often  have  a  power 
transcending  immediate  personal  relations,  as  when  one 
becomes  the  Good  Samaritan  to  a  stranger  whom  circum- 
stance has  made  nearest  neighbor,  or  the  life  of  a  people 
is  at  stake,  or  justice  and  truth  require  the  sacrifice  of 
domestic  happiness,  or,  in  lofty  moments,  the  ideal  of  the 
welfare  of  humanity  generations  hence  moves  the  soul. 
Indeed,  the  entire  question  concerning  the  nature  and 
worth  of  sacrifice  as  self-assertion  for  valued  ends  merges 
into  the  more  general  problem  of  the  highest  good  in  the 
light  of  which,  if  any  act  ought  to  be  done  from  any  point 
of  view,  individual  or  humanitarian,  it  ought  to  be  done 
from  all. 

45,  The  evolutionists  have  taught  that  there  is  a  grad- 


GOODNESS    AND    SELF-SACRIFICE  95 

ual  increase  in  altruistic  tendencies  and  that  the  time 
will  come,  as  Spencer  says,  when  "the  ministration  to 
others'  happiness  will  become  a  daily  need  and  the  lower 
egoistic  satisfactions  will  be  continually  subordinated  to 
this  higher  egoistic  satisfaction."  Indeed,  the  desire  for 
altruistic  satisfactions '  will  become  so  strong  that  each 
will  insist  upon  taking  an  undue  share  of  them,  compet- 
ing with  his  fellows  for  opportunity  to  do  good  to  others. 
"There  is  being  effected  a  conciliation  of  individual  na- 
tures with  social  requirements;  so  that  there  will  eventu- 
ally be  achieved  the  greatest  individuation  along  with  the 
greatest  mutual  dependence — an  equilibrium  of  such  a 
kind  that  each,  in  fulfilling  the  wants  of  his  own  life, 
will  spontaneously  aid  in  fulfilling  the  wants  of  all  other 
lives."  85  This  means  that  the  development  of  individu- 
ality implies  an  increasing  recognition  of  the  identity 
of  welfare  with  that  of  others  accompanied  by  sponta- 
neous effort  to  promote  this  common  well-being  with  no 
sense  of  personal  loss.  Paulsen,  however,  opposes  this 
view  and  holds  that,  as  civilization  advances,  individual- 
ity becomes  more  marked  creating  more  occasions  for  fric- 
tion with  others  and  that,  even  in  the  family,  though  the 
members  live  in  closer  union  than  in  primitive  ages,  there 
are  often  greater  bitterness  and  hatred  between  the  mem- 
bers than  formerly.  Thus  contradictory  opinions  might 
be  arrayed  against  each  other  as  to  whether  or  not  altru- 
ism is  on  the  increase — a  question  like  that  of  the  relative 
merits  of  pessimism  and  optimism  peculiarly  exposed  to 
personal  bias  and  even  prejudice. 

Whether  altruism  increases  or  not  should  be  considered, 
first,  as  to  the  motives  of  action  and,  secondly,  as  to  the 
ends.  Motives  are  unities  of  feeling  and  idea.  Are 
feelings  for  the  well-being  of  others  becoming  more  potent 
and  responsive?  Devotion  to  ideals  has  been  apparently 
equally  great  in  all  ages.  The  ancient  warrior  gave  his 
life  for  his  tribe  or  country,  the  modern  missionary 
devotes  his  life  to  the  cause,  each  gives  all.  The  modern 


96  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

soldier  dies  on  the  battlefield  and  a  mother,  sister,  or 
brother  dies  at  home  in  faithful  service,  nor  is  one  more 
devoted  than  the  other.  Ends  sought  are  ideally  not 
much  improved.  In  the  diplomacy  recorded  by  Livy  and 
in  that  of  the  present  day  between  Christian  nations  one 
searches  in  vain  for  marked  improvement;  as  one  says, 
there  is  no  new  form  of  trickery.  A  Christian  student 
of  Plato,  Aristotle,  and  the  Stoics  doubts  whether  the 
essential  principles  of  virtue  are  now  better  understood 
than  formerly,  though  many  would  hold  to  the  originality 
and  finality  of  Christian  ethics.86 

More  satisfactory  is  it  to  pass  beyond  the  antithesis 
between  altruism  and  egoism  by  denying  that  they  are 
contradictories,  since  all  action  is  self-assertion  for  ends 
in  which  the  weal  and  woe  of  self  and  others  are  involved. 
As  Green  says,  morality  may  be  summed  up  in  the  duties 
of  athe  good  neighbor  and  honest  citizen"  which  means 
that,  however  broad  the  conception  of  the  act  in  relation 
to  self,  humanity,  and  God,  it  is  always  the  particular 
act  required  by  the  concrete  situation,  and,  if  it  ought 
to  be  done  from  either  point  of  view,  it  ought  to  be  done 
from  all.  Then  the  question  may  be  stated  in  a  new 
form:  Does  the  conception  of  personal  welfare  become 
more  comprehensive  of  all  its  relations  to  self,  to  human- 
ity, and  to  God  as  the  centuries  come  and  go  ?  Are  the 
means  and  ends  chosen  and  the  acts  done  in  their' 
objective  character  increasingly  such  as  to  promote  the 
welfare  of  humanity?  Are  the  subjective  feelings  to- 
wards these  more  broadly  conceived  acts  required  by 
concrete  situations  becoming  more  responsive  to  the 
beneficent  results  to  be  attained  ?  The  reply  only  reflects 
personal  opinion  or,  more  correctly,  the  attitude  toward 
faith  in  the  ultimate  trustworthiness  of  humanity  assumed 
to  be  working  out  its  highest  good. 

It  would  be  useful  to  remember  that,  although  it  par- 
takes somewhat  of  the  nature  of  an  assumption,  in 


GOODNESS    AND    SELF-SACKIFICE  97 

proportion  as  we  establish  ourselves  in  virtue  by  building 
up  a  good  character,  we  provide  a  basis  of  action  for  our- 
selves and  others.  Then  the  virtuous  life  would  appear 
in  its  true  light  as  the  strength  of  nations  and  the  source 
of  order  and  progress.  To  adopt  this  truth  is  to  pass  be- 
yond morality  into  religious  faith  which  R.  L.  Stevenson 
beautifully  expresses  in  the  poem:  "If  this  were 
Faith": 

"To  go  on  forever  and  fail  and  go  on  again, 

And  be  mauled  to  the  earth  and  arise, 

And  contend  for  the  shade  of  a  word  and  a  thing  not 

seen  with  the  eyes ; 

With  the  half  of  a  broken  hope  for  a  pillow  at  night 
That  somehow  the  right  is  the  right 
And  the  smooth  shall  bloom  from  the  rough: 
Lord,  if  that  were  enough  ?" 

But  is  it  not  enough?  To  do  what  is  to  us  the 
excellent,  the  just  and  right  confident  of  its  final  imper- 
ishable worth.  It  suffices  to  possess  goodness.  Plato  de- 
scribes the  just  man  as  one  who  "sets  in  order  his  own 
inner  life,  and  is  his  own  master,  and  at  peace  with  him- 
self" (Republic.  IV.  Par.  US).  Socrates  in  the 
Phcedrus  prays:  "Give  me  beauty  in  the  inward  soul: 
and  may  the  outward  and  inward  man  be  one  ....  that 
prayer,  I  think,  is  enough  for  me."  Aristotle  also  says, 
the  good  man  has  feelings  of  satisfaction  concerning  him- 
self with  happy  memories  of  the  past  and  bright  hopes  of 
the  future  (Ethics.  IX.  Ch.  IV).  It  is  a  certain  inner 
affection  and  joy  in  the  love  of  virtuous  action,  comparable, 
I  think,  to  the  Beatitude :  "Blessed  are  they  who  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness;  for  they  shall  be  filled." 
Aristotle's  expression  may  not,  indeed,  be  so  full  of 
meaning,  yet  he  says:  "To  the  good  and  perfect  man, 
existence  is  of  itself  a  good  thing."  But  the  supreme 
good  is  perfectly  enjoyed  by  God  and,  since  man's 


98  MOKAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

personality  is  centred  in  his  reason  which  expresses  itself 
in  virtuous  action,  the  good  man,  like  God,  "holds 
continuous  communion  with  himself."  This,  evidently 
is  the  Greek's  anticipation  of  "the  peace  of  God  which 
passeth  understanding"  (Phil.  4:7). 


CHAPTER  VII 

MORAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  SOCIAL 
ORGANIZATION 


46.  jjocial..  institutions  have,  an  ^  etkicaL^haiCacMr^  .  Jbe- 
cause  of  their  relation  to  the  attainment  of  personality. 
Already  the  development  of  self-consciousness  in  insepar- 
able union  with  the  consciousness  of  others  has  been  con- 
sidered (Sec.  40)  so  that  only  a  brief  statement  is  now 
required.  Probably  the  consciousness  of  the  new-born 
child  consists  of  a  succession  of  states  evoked  by  internal 
activities  and  by  external  stimulation  of  end-organs  min- 
gled with  sensations  arising  from  motor  impulses  reflex 
and  instinctive.  It  may  be,  as  Lotze  suggests,  that  agree- 
able or  disagreeable  feelings  in  connection  with  these 
sensuous  experiences  form  the  root  of  individuality. 

"The  crushed  worm  writhing  in  pain  undoubtedly  dis- 
tinguishes its  own  suffering  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
though  it  can  understand  neither  its  own  ego  nor  the  na- 
ture of  the  external  world."  81  Gradually  the  stream  of 
mental  states  is  differentiated  into  the  consciousness  of 
self,  other  selves  and  things,  but  all  are  within  the  unity  of 
experience  arid  the  process  is  largely  unreflective.  The 
consciousness  of  others  probably  is  first  to  attain  clear- 
ness, since  they  are  the  source  of  satisfactions,  and,  at 
higher  levels,  is  deepened  by  the  need  of  making  suitable 
responses.  Feelings,  persistent  sensations,  motor  impul- 
ses, acts  of  attention  and  many  other  factors  form  a  group 
that  gradually  becomes  the  empirical  self,  at  first  closely 
associated  with  the  organism.  Soon  the  distinctions, 
"I,"  "me,"  "not-self,"  become  possible,  though  their  limits 
are  not  fixed.  Then  the  self  is  still  further  spiritualized 
by  being  differentiated,  not  only  from  other  selves  and 
material  things  but  also  from  the  body,  the  space  occupy- 

99 


100  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

ing  thing,  the  organ  of  the  soul,  that  perishes.  This 
spiritualization  may  be  carried  further  as  with  Plato, 
Aristotle,  and  Descartes,  distinguishing  the  "essence"  of 
the  soul  as  pure  thought  or  reason  from  feelings  and  sen- 
suous experiences  which  are  temporal.  Religion,  too, 
often  seeks  a  real  self  in  mystic  union  with  the  Divine. 
But  this  "essential-  self"  is  not  what  we  are  to  ourselves 
in  daily  life,  although  in  rare  moments  we  seem  to  expe- 
rience a  deeper  reality.  Our  empirical  self-hood  includes, 
indeed,  fleeting  sensuous  images  and  feelings  connected 
with  the  image  of  the  organism,  as  Bergson  seems  to  sug- 
gest,88 but  however  important  they  may  be  in  accomplish- 
ing the  differentiation  from  other  existences,  self-hood  is 
constituted  by  some -degree  of  memory  and  self-conscious- 
ness subordinating  experiences  to  some  recognized  end, 
especially  in  the  higher  levels,  that  dominates  activities 
through  which  it  is  realized.  This  makes  personality 
not  so  much  actual  as  something  that  ought  to  be,  a  task 
to  be  achieved,  ethical.  About  this  end  are  gathered  those 
interests  and  unique  experiences  which  constitute  indi- 
viduality. 

Material  things  are  relatively  constant  forms  of  expe- 
riences and  are  representative  of  some  action  which  gives 
them  almost  a  spiritual  significance.  For  example,  we 
do  not  try  to  kindle  a  fire  with  a  stone,  but  it  is  useful 
in  the  foundation  of  a  building.  The  permanence  of 
things  consists  largely  in  the  constancy  of  their  utility 
in  satisfying  our  needs,  especially  in  cooperation  with 
others.  Things  are,  therefore,  in  some  real  sense,  a  social 
product  of  common  and  constant  experiences  upon  which 
personal  intercourse  depends.  Thus  self,  other  selves  and 
things  are  forms  of  the  unity  of  experience  subordinated 
to  the  ideal  of  well-being. 

47.  The  interpretation  of  personal  relations  requires 
the  conception  of  the  social  self.  "A  man  has  as  many 
social  selves  as  there  are  individuals  who  recognize  him 
and  carry  an  image  of  him  in  their  min'd  .  .  .  about 


MOBAL   SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    OEGM'TiZA^ON      10l 


whose  opinion  he  cares."  89  The  ethical  character  of 
this  social  self  is  evident,  for  what  we  believe  others 
think  of  us  influences  the  formation  of  our  ideals  and 
motives.  The  groups  to  which  one  belongs  develop  the 
ethical  task  of  maintaining  a  consistent  character  in  them 
all,  as  for  example,  being  the  head  of  the  family,  a  mem- 
ber of  a  club,  a  director  in  a  stock  company,  a  church 
deacon,  a  politician,  a  philanthropist.  The  self  may  be 
regarded  as  a  system  consisting  of  lesser  systems  of  activ- 
ities or  social  selves,  imposing  the  ethical  task  of  unify- 
ing them  in  one  definite  personality.  It  is  easy  to  be  a 
good  club-man  or  home-lover  or  this  or  that,  but  to  be  all 
these  consistently  requires  a  high  order  of  thought  and 
will.  Success  in  one  may  coexist  with  failure  in  another. 
Then  the  self  is  a  collection  of  fragments.  In  contrast, 
are  those  who  have  had  the  courage  and  wisdom  to  elim- 
inate what  cannot  be  unified  and  to  set  their  faces  stead- 
fastly toward  some  life-purpose  in  which  the  good  of  self 
and  others  is  realized.  But,  in  these  different  social 
selves,  individuality  is  preserved  through  the  uniqueness 
of  thoughts,  feelings  and  actions  with  the  consequence 
that  the  more  comprehensive  the  social  relations,  the  more 
marked  the  personality  becomes. 

The  conception  of  the  social  self  implies  that  a  certain 
public  consciousness  or  opinion  or  attitude  exists  in  the 
group  as  a  whole  and  forms  the  background  from  which 
each  determines  his  duty  in  a  particular  situation.  This 
social  mind  largely  accounts  for  the  "intuitions"  of  the 
moral  judgment.  Common  modes  of  action,  feeling, 
thought,  and  will  soon  develop.  Language  shows  that 
each  group  possesses  its  own  terms,  to  some  extent  famil- 
iar to  others.  A  family,  a  trade-union,  a  religious  sect, 
has  its  own  range  of  ideas.  Practical  knowledge,  tools 
and  methods  may  vary.  Each  age  has  its  point  of  view  —  • 
a  priori  rationalistic,  deductive,  mathematical  as  in  the 
time  of  Descartes  and  Spinoza,  inductive  and  biological 
in  that  of  Darwin  and  Spencer.  Classes  have  different 


•  .MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

habits  and  virtues  differently  emphasized.  We  speak  of 
the  age  of  chivalry,  the  spirit  of  the  French,  Germans  or 
English.  Self-consciousness  of  the  group  also  arises 
when  something  occurs  to  bring  it  into  contrast  with 
others.  Children  feel  that  the  family  to  which  they  be- 
long has  a  home-life  separate  from  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Pressure  from  the  outside  frequently  throws  men  together 
and  creates  a  consciousness  of  themselves  as  a  unit  with 
special  ends  to  accomplish,  as,  for  example,  a  religious 
sect,  or  an  organization  for  a  crusade  against  evil.  Then 
this  social  self-consciousness  becomes  volitional  to  work 
out  jointly  conceived  purposes  for  the  common  welfare. 
Even  the  locality  has  an  influence  upon  the  social  mind, 
for  the  seaman,  the  plainsman,  the  mountaineer,  the  city- 
dweller,  have  somewhat  different  attitudes  and  springs  of 
action. 

The  individual  inherits  the  family,  class,  and  race 
consciousness,  enjoys  and  enriches  it  but  soon  transmits 
it  to  others,  for  the  individual  is  the  ephemeral  offspring 
of  the  enduring  social  mind.  Progress  thus  becomes  pos- 
sible through  the  individual's  reconstructions  of  prevail- 
ing modes  of  thought  and  action  which  in  turn  are  incor- 
porated into  the  common  life.  The  widening  o£  this 
social  mind  is  conditioned  chiefly  by  means  of  communi- 
cation between  classes,  closeness  of  association  and  unity 
of  action  for  common  ends.  Hope  arises  that  there  may 
sometime  be  a  social  mind  large  enough  to  embrace  the 
thought,  feeling  and  will  of  all  men. 

48.  The  participation  of  the  individual  in  the  social 
mind  goes  far  toward  accounting  for  the  nature  and  origin 
of  society.  It  is  unnecessary  to  review  the  facts  con- 
nected with  the  propagation  and  preservation  of  the 
species,  the  care  and  protection  of  children,  the  position 
of  mother  and  father  in  the  family,  the  growth  of  the 
tribe,  clan,  state,  nation,  until  the  ideal  of  a  federation 
of  nations  is  formed.  Everywhere  the  individual  has 
interest  in  the  good  of  others  "which  cannot  be  satisfied 


MOKAT,    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION      103 

without  tlie  consciousness  that  these  other  persons  are 
satisfied."  90  It  is  the  presence  of  sufficient  intelligence 
in  its  members  to  recognize  each  other  as  having  common 
interests  and  a  common  good  which  distinguishes  human 
society  from  lower  forms  of  association.  Only  as  there  is 
this  intelligent  capacity  of  "conceiving  and  seeking  a 
permanent  well-being  in  which  the  permanent  well-being 
of  others  is  included"  is  it  possible  for  that  community  of 
life  to  arise  which  is  known  as  society  and  social  institu- 
tions. 

If  it  is  objected  that  self-conscious  recognition  of  others' 
well-being  in  relation  to  that  of  the  self  is  not  present  in 
primitive  life,  nor,  to  any  marked  degree,  in  the  daily 
routine  of  the  civilized  state,  it  may  be  granted.  It  is 
also  true  that  men  are  bound  together  through  primary 
tendencies,  instincts  and  emotions,  and  that  customs  de- 
velop with  little  foresight  of  results,  yet  I  think  this  is 
quite  in  keeping  with  growth  to  full  ethical  personality. 
The  entire  process  forms  a  whole  rendering  it  impossible 
rightly  to  elevate  some  factor  like  instincts  or  emotion 
into  the  place  of  supreme  importance.  The  tendencies, 
instincts,  and  emotions  which  man  has  in  common  with 
the  animals  are  characterized  by  differentiations  in  which 
may  lie  a  large  part  of  the  rationality  which  is  supposed 
to  distinguish  man  from  the  lower  orders  of  life  and 
through  which  he  is  capable  of  recognizing  that  the  good 
of  others  is  involved  in  his  own  welfare,  thus  distinguish- 
ing human  society  from  animal  associations. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  conceive  what  the  indi- 
vidual in  a  state  of  nature  apart  from  social  relations 
would  be.  Hobbes  described  this  hypothetical  condition 
as  one  in  which  men  would  be  so  equal  in  body  and  mind 
that  no  one  would  have  advantage  over  another.  With 
like  passions  and  appetites,  they  strive  for  the  same  objects 
with  the  result  that  "they  are  in  that  condition  which  is 
called  war;  and  such  a  war,  as  is  of  every  man,  against 
every  man/7  with  no  security  other  than  what  individual 


104  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

strength  and  invention  can  furnish.  "There  is  no  place 
for  industry,  because  the  fruit  thereof  is  uncertain,  and 
consequently  no  culture  of  the  earth;  no  navigation  nor 
use  of  commodities  that  may  be  imported  by  sea;  no 
commodious  building;  no  instruments  of  moving,  and  re- 
moving, such  things  as  require  much  force ;  no  knowledge 
of  the  face  of  the  earth ;  no  account  of  time ;  no  arts ;  no 
letters;  no  society,  and,  which  is  worst  of  all,  continual 
fear,  and  danger  of  violent  death;  and  the  life  of  man, 
solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish,  and  short."  91 

This  famous  passage  shows  how  limited  is  the  good 
attainable  by  individual  effort  deprived  of  social  institu- 
tions, and  finds  illustration  in  the  effects  of  the  Great  War. 
The  constant  tribal  warfare  of  the  American  Indians,  for 
example,  gradually  reduced  their  number  and  rendered 
their  life  poor  and  miserable.  But  these  tribes  were  al- 
ready social  organizations.  There  have  been  and  are  yet 
lower  forms  of  human  life  but  still  with  some  social  or- 
der.92 Of  course,  Hobbes'  hypothetical  state  of  isolated 
individuals  liever  existed,  for  primary  needs  of  food, 
shelter,  propagation,  and  protection  always  compel  mutual 
recognition  and  cooperation  in  some  degree  and  hence 
society  to  this  extent  has  always  prevailed. 

Hobbes  was  right  in  seeking  to  found  his  commonwealth 
upon  a  psychological  analysis  of  man's  nature  with  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  social  order  that  would  most  serve 
human  needs.  The  principle  is  that  men  dwelling  to- 
gether supplement  each  other's  efforts  and  promote  each 
other's  good.  Consequently,  individuals  set  each  other 
free  by  calling  into  activity  powers  that  would  otherwise 
remain  dormant  and  the  social  order  is  only  a  system  of 
tested  and  approved  modes  of  cooperative  activity.  Social 
problems  derive  their  significance  from  this  principle  of 
personal  freedom  and  concern  ways  and  means  of  its  en- 
largement and  interpretation.  Social  institutions  are,  as 
Hegel  says,  the  embodiment  of  the  idea  of  freedom  and 
social  relations  determine  one's  individuality  and  self- 


MORAL   SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION      105 

hood.  Practically  we  acknowledge  this  in  our  admiration 
of  the  person  who  is  adequately  faithful  to  family,  neigh- 
borhood, church,  and  state  with  a  steady  devoted  will. 
Such  life  is  stronger  and  more  real  than  one  which  heeds 
only  a  few  relations,  a  confession  of  limitations  yet  an 
acknowledgment  that  true  self-hood  and  freedom  are  still 
to  be  attained  in  wider  relations.  It  is  as  though  every 
social  regulation  released  some  hitherto  imprisoned  power 
and  allowed  it  to  come  forth  into  the  light  and  find  ex- 
pression in  its  appropriate  function.  Human  powers  are 
intellectual,  aesthetic,  moral  and  religious.  How  much 
personal  freedom  means !  Self -chosen  ends  bring  unexer- 
cised  powers  into  activity  in  response  to  the  community, 
the  social  order,  law  and  the  state.  We  need  each  other 
and  each  needs  the  rest  of  mankind.  Two  children  play 
together  more  happily  than  either  alone  while  a  company 
is  merrier  still.  Any  honest-minded  man  is  able  to  do  and 
be  more,  the  more  the  opportunities  within  his  capacity 
to  which  he  is  forced  to  respond.  "Iron  sharpeneth  iron ; 
so  a  man  sharpeneth  the  countenance  of  his  friend"  (Prov. 
27:17). 

The  power  as  well  as  the  limits  of  social  regulations  to 
liberate  and  train  individual  capacities  to  useful  ends 
is  shown  by  the  success  of  such  schools  as  the  Vineland 
Training  School  in  which  defectives  attain  a  good  degree 
of  development  with  happiness  and  freedom.  But  such 
persons  have  limits  beyond  which  they  cannot  go,  however 
favorable  the  conditions.  The  color-blind  or  tone-deaf 
cannot  become  artists  or  musicans,  but  they  may  be  "born 
long"  in  some  other  power  in  which  they  may  be  success- 
fully trained,  if  proper  methods  are  employed  to  discover 
and  develop  this  capacity.93  But  everyone  is  rendered 
relatively  helpless  and  miserable  if  deprived  of  the  bene- 
fits of  society  and  compelled  to  live  in  isolation.  Per- 
sonal freedom  and  independence  are,  therefore,  possible 
only  in  relation  to  others  who  give  opportunity  for  and  re- 
quire the  use  of  one's  powers  the  purpose  of  which  is  to 


106  MORAL   LIFE   AND   RELIGION 

fulfill  the  ideal  of  personality,  or,  to  gain  abounding  life. 
As  long  as  there  are  unrealized  capacities,  there  will  al- 
ways be  room  for  progressive  improvement  in  the  social 
order. 

49.  Just  as  the  individual  half -unconsciously,  with- 
out forethought,  develops  habits  of  action  which  become 
fixed  because  successful,  so  does  the  cooperative  activity 
of  the  members  of  a  social  group  in  procuring  satisfaction 
of  primary  needs  assume  definite  forms  which,  being  re- 
garded as  successful,  become  the  most  approved  methods 
of  promoting  the  common  welfare.  These  social  habits 
are  customs  which  may  be  peculiar  to  a  community. 
There  is,  of  course,  opportunity  for  the  growth  of  acci- 
dental features  in  connection  with  customs,  for  essential 
and  unessential  are  not  readily  distinguished  and  both  re- 
ceive authority.  Religion,  too,  is  apt  to  impart  a  sacred- 
ness  to  customs  which  cannot  then  be  disregarded  without 
impiety.  Customs  represent  the  conservative  side  of  social 
life  and  do  not  easily  give  place  to  new  and  untried  meth- 
ods with  the  consequence  that  there  is  little  room  for  per- 
sonal initiative  except  as  one  purposely  adopts  these  ac- 
cepted modes  of  activity.  Such  acts  may  be  regarded  as 
the  morality  of  custom  which  is  only  a  preliminary  stage 
in  moral  development,  not  fully  conscious  of  its  ethical 
significance.  There  are,  however,  some  intelligence,  and 
often  intense  emotion  which  revolts  against  any  depart- 
ure from  the  custom;  some  recognition  of  authority,  with 
voluntary  acceptance,  and  even  a  fear  akin  to  reverence. 
The  partially  developed  nature  of  the  morality  of  cus- 
tom lies  in  the  tendency  of  the  individual  to  act  in  accord 
with  the  standards  of  the  group  with  inadequate  recogni- 
tion of  the  purpose  of  the  customs  to  promote  well-being. 
Genuine  morality  consists  in  each  member  of  the  commun- 
ity becoming  self-legislative  with  a  due  sense  of  the  bear- 
ing of  his  self-imposed  ends  of  action  upon  his  own  and 
/K  others'  welfare,  with  thoughtfulness,  self-control  and  as- 
piration towards  an  ideal,  and  with  courageous  effort  of 


MORAL    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION       107 

will  to  achieve  this  end.  The  moral  development  of  the 
individual  and  of  the  race  is  promoted  by  increasingly 
intelligent  direction  of  activity,  with  a  deepening  rever- 
ence for  an  ideal  good,  issuing  in  character  organized 
about  the  best  conceptions  of  human  welfare.  Then  the 
firmness  of  virtuous  character  provides  for  the  steadfast- 
ness and  certainty  of  action  which  customs  produce. 
Thus  do  customs  have  their  place  in  the  orderly  develop- 
ment of  mankind  towards  genuine  morality  in  fulfillment 
of  the  ideal  of  the  highest  good. 

50.  The  individual  begins)  in  subservience  to  custom, 
but  acffttrees  ability  -  to-cr eafe  personal  ideals  of  conduct 
towards  which  obligation  is  felt  and  claims  the  right 
to  ofr-what  appears  to  be  duty.  This  is  properly  the 
moral  stage  of  personal  development  followed  by  more  or 
less  fixed  character.  But  these  personal  views  of  what 
one  is  obligated  to  do  are  so  numerous  and  often  so  er- 
roneous that  they  are  subjected  to  social  regulation.  The 
community,  becoming  self-conscious  as  to  the  necessity  of 
performing  certain  acts  and  preventing  others,  not  only 
recognizes  the  right  but  authoritatively  decrees  both  the 
obligation  and  the  right  to  do  only  such  acts  as  tend  to 
promote  common  welfare.  Such  is  the  origin  of  rights 
and  obligations  variously  designated  civil,  political,  legal, 
which  go  beyond  custom  and  personal  ideas  of  duty,  not 
so  much  in  principle  as  in  the  clearer  social  recognition  of 
the  importance  of  the  acts  concerned. 

Eights  and  obligations  mean  that  the  individual  has\       ^ 
powers  of  body  and  mind  whose  exercise  will  contribute  to  V^  ^ 
the  general  welfare,  and  is  not  only  permitted  but  re-   / 
quired  to  use  them  under  definite  conditions.     Having  / 
the  right,  the  individual  is  obligated  to  use  the  right  and 
society,  having  granted  the  right,  assumes  the  obligation 
to  guarantee  it  by  instituting  conditions  which  will  make 
it    possible    to   use   the    powers   thus    set   free.     Rights 
with  their  corresponding  obligations   are,   then,    specific 
forms  of  personal  freedom  with  an  ethical  significance, 


108  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

since  they  remove  hindrances  to  action  according  to  per- 
sonal conceptions  of  life's  good  which  is  the  condition  of 
the  development  of  character  and  the  fulfillment  of  the 
moral  ideal.  "The  'only  fundamental  anarchy  is  that 
which  regards  rights  as  private  monopolies,  ignoring  their 
social  origin  and  intent.  .  .  .  Absolute  rights,if  we  mean 
by  absolute  those  not  relative  to  any  social  order  and 
hence  exempt  from  social  restriction,  there  are  none."  94 
Absoluteness  could  only  attach  to  the  personal  sense  of 
obligation  to  self-imposed  norms  of  conduct  and  to  the 
feeling  that  one  has  the  right  to  do  what  seems  to  be  a 
duty,  but  even  then  the  social  relations  of  the  act  have  to 
be  considered.  , 

51.  The  theory  of  "natural  rights'7  may  be  shown  to  be 
consistent  'with  the  doctrine  of  the  social  origin  of  rights 
and  obligations.  Its  history  is  instructive.  Hobbes,  for 
example,  held  that,  in  their  primal  condition,  men  had 
each  a  "natural  right"  to  obtain  as  much  as  possible  with- 
out regard  to  others,  though  it  might  involve  their  injury. 
But,  since  such  a  condition  of  strife  could  not  be  endured, 
these  "natural  rights"  were  delegated  to  a  central  power 
or  sovereign  whose  decrees  established  right  and  wrong  and 
secured  the  reign  of  the  "laws  of  nature"  whose  end  is 
security  and  peace.  The  truth  of  this  is  that  the  central 
government  derives  its  powers  from  the  people  for  whose 
security  and  welfare  both  the  government  and  law  exist, 
and  that  the  social  order,  established,  in  its  turn  creates 
rights  and  imposes  obligations  upon  the  members  of  the 
state.95  On  the  other  hand,  Jeremy  Bentham  rejected 
the  theory  of  "natural  rights"  and  held  that  there  are  no 
rights  but  those  established  by  the  state.  Spencer,  how- 
ever, declares  that  "it  is  ridiculous  to  think  of  a  people 
creating  rights,  which  it  had  not  before,  by  the  process  of 
creating  a  government  in  order  to  create  them.  It  is  ab- 
surd to  treat  an  individual  as  having  a  share  of  rights  as  a 
member  of  the  people,  while  in  his  private  capacity  he  has 
no  rights  at  all."  96  ' 


9        jf- 


MOBAL,    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION       10 

The  theory  of  "natural  rights"  inhering  in  the  Individ- 
ual  even  against  the  state  has  a  meaning  which  "Ts^nT^ 
danger  of  being  lost  through  the  assumed  irreconcilability,/*^ 
of  individual  with  social  well-being.  This  deadlock  pef^ 
sists,  until  it  is  discovered  that  true  individuality  is  pos- 
sible only  in  the  social  order  which  represents  the  deeper 
life  of  humanity.  The  individual  is  not  an  atom,  a 
simple  unity,  but  a  subject  with  many  attributes.  Apply- 
ing this  principle  to  ourselves,  it  follows  that  our  indi- 
viduality as  persons  exists  in  proportion  as  our  experien- 
ces are  many  and  our  capacities  called  forth  by  relation 
to  the  environment.  Our  good,  therefore,  consists  in  be- 
coming more  truly  persons  with  an  increasing  complexity 
and  richness  of  experience,  with  definiteness  of  condi- 
tions, determined  by  some  end,  for  no  simple  form  of  con- 
tinuous activity  can  permanently  satisfy.  This  attain- 
ment of  definite  personality  ministers  to  the  richer  ex- 
perience of  the  social  whole. 

Two_v,things  now  become  clear:  first,  that  each  jpossesscs_ 


certain  JJOW^TS.  of  body  and  rmr\c\  wTymfo  in  fa**- 
<rnatural  rights"  mean;  secondly^ that  the  right  to  the  ex- 
ercise of  these  natural  capacities  is  bestowed  through,  the 
recognition  of  others  in  behalf  of  the  common  welfare. 
For  example,  because  one  has  the  power  of  speech,  has  he 
a  right  to  talk  ?  Not  unless  it  is  granted  by  others  under 
definite  conditions,  for  instance,  that  the  speech  be  decent 
and  respectful.  Otherwise  the  individual  has  a  natural 
capacity  not  yet  set  free.  Rights,  then,  so  far  as  they  ex- 
ist  are  of  social  origin  and  set  free  capacities  to  be  ex- 
ercised-for  the  common  welfare.  But  the  assertion  that 
the  individual  has  "natural  rights"  against  the  state  may 
mean  that  he  has  a  power,  thus  far  unrecognized  by  the 
social  mind,  whose  exercise  would  contribute  to  the  com- 
mon good  and  which  he  feels  morally  obligated  to  use. 
If  his  fellows  are  aware  that  this  capacity,  for  example, 
of  speech,  would,  if  exercised,  have  this  good  result,  the 
individual  may  claim  the  right,  and,  if  the  state  fails  to 


110  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

grant  the  right,  it  is  to  that  extent  inconsistent  with  its 
purpose.  Here  again  emerges  the  problem  concerning  de- 
fectives, the  feeble-minded  and  others  who  have  some 
"natural  rights"  in  the  sense  of  capacities  which  might  be 
used,  under  proper  conditions,  to  the  common  advantage, 
although  they  may  need  to  be  surrounded  by  protective 
measures  to  enable  them  to  have  that  degree  of  well-being 
of  which  they  are  capable  and  which  it  should  be  the  func- 
tion of  society  and  the  state  to  provide. 

52.  The  state  as  the  highest  form  of  the  social  order 
has  to  perform  those  functions  essential  to  the  common 
well-being  which  the  individual  has  not  the  power  to  do, 
or,  if  he  had  the  power,  probably  would  lack  the  inclina- 
tion.  The  state  institutes  and  maintains  conditions 
which  will  render  possible,  encourage  and  promote  the 
individual's  use  of  his  powers  for  the  sake  of  the  general 
welfare  in  which  his  own  is  involved./Legal  norms  as- 
sume for  the  most  part  a  negative  form  intended  to  "hin-\ 
der  hindrances"  to  the  unrestricted  action  of  the  individ-  \. 
ual  in  accordance  with  moral  ends.  "Thou  shalt  not  kill" 
performs  its  protective  function  but  ,also  enjoins  that! 
"thou  shalt  respect  and  guard  thy  neighbor's  life."  Hence 
the  moral  norm  requires  more  than  the  legal  which  it  im- 
plies and  fulfills.  / Consequently,  the  function  of  law  and 
of  civil  and  political  institutions  is  to  protect  the  moral 
agent  in  producing  those  internal  and  external  results 
which  contribute  to  the  welfare  of  humanity.  Justice 
will  consist  "in  the  proper  apportionment  of  rights  and 
duties  among  the  various  subjects  of  law,  an  apportion- 
ment in  accordance  with  the  existing  conditions  which  gov- 
ern the  life  of  society  and  humanity  at  large" ;  9T  or,  as 
Plato  said:  justice  is  to  be  found  "in  the  relations  of 
citizens  with  one  another — every  man  practising  .  .  .  the 
thing  to  which  his  nature  was  most  perfectly  adapted."  98 
Accordingly  one  state  may  be  more  free  and  just 
than  another  as  its  institutions  tend  to  liberate  the  pow- 
ers of  its  citizens  in  such  a  manner  that  their  use  may 


MOBAL    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION      111 

contribute  to  the  common  welfare.  As  Bosanquet  says: 
"To  comprehend  that  the  social  phenomena  which  are 
among  the  most  solid  and  unyielding  of  our  experiences, 
are  nevertheless  ideal  in  their  nature,  and  consist  of  con- 
scious recognitions,  by  intelligent  beings,  of  the  relations 
in  which  they  stand,  is  to  make  a  great  step  towards 
grasping  the  essential  task  of  science  in  dealing  with 
society."  "  The  prevailing  social  order  of  a  people  con- 
sists of  their  most  trusted  ways  of  realizing  the  ideal 
good  which  their  developing  experience  has  been  able 
to  conceive.  The  repeated  assertion  of  "natural  rights" 
is  only  a  vague  striving  beyond  the  present  tested  result 
of  generations  of  experience  to  a  better  fulfillment  of  the 
ideal  of  the  highest  good.  One  generation  is  scarcely 
likely  to  bring  about  a  radical  modification  of  existing 
institutions,  although  each  generation,  indeed,  each  indi- 
vidual, has  a  contribution  to  make  to  the  development  of 
the  social  order.  "Visible  society  is,  indeed,  literally  a 
work  of  art,  slow  and  mostly  subconscious  in  its  produc- 
tion— as  good  art  often  is — full  of  grotesque  and  wayward 
traits,  but  yet  of  inexhaustible  beauty  and  fascina- 
tion." 10°  It  is  also  an  ethic  and  even  a  religion,  for 
the  social  fabric  in  its  function  of  liberating  the  powers  of 
moral  agents  has  an  ethical  significance  which  easily  be- 
comes religious  trust  in  human  nature  as  capable  of  good 
and  in  the  God  of  nations. 

53.  The  above  conception  of  the  state  has  been 
wrought  out  in  the  furnace  of  experience.  It  has  in- 
spired nations  and  destroyed  thrones  in  its  progress 
towards  democracy.  Plato  first  formulated  the  necessary 
idea  of  the  state,  the  idea,  says  Kant,  of  "a  constitution 
founded  on  the  greatest  possible  human  freedom,  accord- 
ing to  laws  which  enable  the  freedom  of  each  individual 
to  exist  by  the  side  of  the  freedom  of  others."  101  But 
Plato  tended  to  regard  the  state  as  of  value  in  itself  as 
distinguished  from  the  life  of  the  people  who  obey  its 
laws.  "We  are  concerned  here,"  he  says,  "not  with  any 


112  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

well-being  of  the  parts,  but  with  securing  to  the  whole,  to 
the  state  as  such,  the  greatest  possible  power  of  self-preser- 
vation." 102  The  eternal  Idea  was  the  objective  source 
from  which  the  particulars  of  what  is  just  and  right  were 
to  be  derived.  But  the  truer  meaning  of  the  state,  which 
has  become  recognized  as  the  result  of  historical  develop- 
ment, is  that  human  society  as  the  source  expresses  itself 
in  constructions  of  human  reason  "which,  with  conscious 
reflection  upon  existing  circumstances,  endeavors  to  order 
things  according  to  that  which  is  good  .  .  .  the  national 
conscience  affording  the  revelation  of  this  good."  Hu- 
man institutions  are,  then,  the  work  of  men  who  feel 
bound  by  their  relative  validity  in  their  progressive  de- 
velopment.103 

This  tentative  inductive  temper  which  gives  due  weight 
to  the  particular,  even  when  the  universal  is  not  in  sight, 
characterized  the  political  bent  of  the  Romans  who  held 
that  the  private  right  and  well-being  of  the  individual  as 
well  as  of  the  social  whole  must  be  provided  for  by  the 
state,  and  yet  devotion  to  the  commonwealth  was  no  less 
great  in  Rome  than  in  Greece.  Private  rights  are  really 
capacities  with  which  nature  endows  us  and  which  we  de- 
sire to  exercise  under  limitations  with  regard  to  those 
who  profess  a  willingness  to  make  similar  renunciations 
toward  members  of  the  same  political  community.  The 
political  development  of  Rome  was  in  harmony  with  this 
conception  of  the  people's  relation  to  their  government, 
though  not  wholly  determined  by  it.104  The  Christian 
conception  of  the  worth  of  personality  was  also  an  import- 
ant influence.  The  idea  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  for 
a  thousand  years  after  the  crowning  of  Charlemagne  by 
the  Pope  in  800  A.  D.  constantly  held  before  the  world 
the  thought  of  a  common  humanity  in  whose  welfare  the 
highest  good  of  the  individual  is  to  be  found,  an  ideal 
even  now  only  tentatively  realized  through  the  nation- 
state. 

It  was  the  erratic  Rousseau,  influenced  by  Locke,  who  so 


MORAL,   SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION      113 

forcefully  interpreted  the  meaning  of  what  a  state  should 
be  that  it  was  one  of  the  contributing  causes  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Rousseau's  theory  of  education  embodied  in 
his  Emile  is,  I  think,  the  logical  foundation  of  the  con- 
ception expressed  in  his  Contract-social.  Both  works  ap- 
peared in  1762.  Emile  educates  himself  under  the  guid- 
ance of  his  teacher  who  leads  him  to  put  forth  the  powers 
he  possesses.  It  is  only  the  theory  of  Socrates  over  again. 
Let  the  function  of  the  teacher  be  to  remove  hindrances 
that  the  mind  of  the  pupil  may  unfold.  If  a  man  is  only 
permitted  to  act  out  the  real  self,  he  will  find  the  good 
of  life  for  which  he  longs  and  strives.  The  degenerate 
social  order  of  that  day  prevented  men  from  being  what 
they  might,  for  "man,"  said  Rousseau,  "is  born  free,  and 
everywhere  he  is  in  chains."  Hence  the  problem  was: 
"To  find  a  form  of  association  which  shall  defend  and  pro- 
tect, with  the  entire  common  force,  the  person  and  the 
goods  of  each  associate,  and  by  which,  each,  uniting  him- 
self to  all,  may  nevertheless  obey  only  himself,  and  remain 
as  free  as  before." 

The  only  objection  to  Rousseau's  statement  of  the  social 
problem  is  the  phrase:  "as  free  as  before."  Rousseau 
really  meant  that  freedom  is  found  only  in  the  social  order 
whose  function  is  to  liberate  human  capacities  by  estab- 
lishing conditions  that  make  possible,  encourage  and 
promote  the  exercise  of  these  powers  in  their  appropriate 
objects.105  Kant  was  powerfully  influenced  by  Rous- 
seau's conception  of  man  and,  with  Kant,  it  became  even 
the  law  of  the  Practical  Reason:  "Act  so  as  to  use  hu- 
manity, whether  in  your  own  person  or  in  the  person  of 
another,  always  as  an  end,  never  as  a  means."  This  im- 
plies a  "kingdom  of  ends,"  a  social  unity  of  persons.  It 
was  Hegel  who  in  his  Philosophy  of  Rights  (Sees.  35,  36, 
147,  257)  set  forth  the  same  conception  when  he  placed 
the  entire  significance  of  the  social  order,  civil  and  po- 
litical, in  the  realization  of  the  ethical  idea  of  freedom 
and  in  "being  a  person."  "Really,  every  genuine  law 


114  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

is  a  liberty,  it  contains  a  reasonable  principle  of  ob- 
jective mind;  in  .other  words,  it  embodies  a  liberty" 
("Philosophy  of  Mind/'  Trans,  p.  134).  Bosanquet  ex- 
presses a  like  conception  in  describing  the  state  as  our 
own  mind  extended,  so  to  speak,  beyond  our  immediate 
consciousness ;  it  is  our  mind  at  its  best ;  it  is  a  man's  real 
self  lying  outside  himself,  that  is,  it  offers  opportunity 
really  to  use  the  power  inhering  in  the  self.  The  state, 
then,  is  a  working  conception  of  life.  "The  nation-state 
as  an  ethical  idea  is  a  faith  or  purpose — we  might  say  a 
mission  were  not  the  word  too  narrow  and  too  aggressive. 
The  modern  nation  is  a  history  and  a  religion  rather 


than  a  clear  cut  idea.  Its  power  as  an  idea-force  is  not 
known  till  it  is  tried."  106  The  stubborn  facts  of  the 
social  order  have,  therefore,  an  ideal,  ethical,  even  reli- 
gious character  and  mean  a  working  hypothesis  of  life 
slowly  verified  with  modifications  through  the  experience 
of  generations.  The  social  fabric  has  been  called  a  work 
of  art,  creating  itself,  beautiful  and  sublime  in  its  varied 
form  and  power ;  an  ethic,  often  doing  wrong,  but  glowing 
with  passion  and  effort,  a  religion^  with  fear  and  reverence 
towards  itself  and  its  unknown"  destiny7~  The  mind  is 
overwhelmed  in  the  attempt  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the 
collective  life  of  mankind.  "This  is  the  generation  of 
that  great  Leviathan,  or  rather,  to  speak  more  rever- 
ently, of  that  mortal  god,  to  which  we  owe  under  the  im- 
mortal God,  our  peace  and  defence"  (Hobbes). 

The  modern  state,  especially,  creates  itself  from  within 

through  the  use  of  the  ballot  which  it  grants  to  its  citizens 

as  a  right  and  an  obligation,  requiring  them  to  share  in 

the  determination  of  conditions  under  which  they  fulfill 

, their  ideal  of  the  highest  good.     Since  rights  and  obliga- 

ions  are  correlative,  possessing  the  right  of  the  ballot,  we 

ave  not  the  right  not  to  vote.     The  very  function  of  the 

te  is  to  institute  conditions  which  cannot  be  left  to 
caprice  of  the  individual.  The  ballot  is  one  of  these 

titutions.     Perplexity    and    indifference    do    not    ex.-> 


MORAL    SIGNIFICANCE    OF    SOCIAL    ORGANIZATION      115 

cuse  the  voter  any  more  than  they  do  the  juror  for  both 
are  called  upon,  however  difficult  it  may  be,  to  render 
their  verdict  in  the  light  of  what  they  believe  to  be  true 
and  best.  The  voter  is  in  a  highly  moral  situation  which 
requires  an  effort  to  understand  the  conditions  and  the 
standard  of  valuation.  The  hypothetical  character  of  the 
voter's  decisions  is  inseparable  from  the  untried  stages 
through  which  the  developing  life  of  mankind  passes. 
Errors  may  be  made  and  later  corrected  by  a  more  ade- 
quate understanding  of  the  conditions  of  human  welfare, 
but  the  very  errors  are  significant  of  growth.  Nietzsche, 
for  example,  in  his  invective  against  democracy  fails  to 
understand  the  significance  of  the  ballot,  for  it  expresses 
the  social  mind  which,  in  a  very  real  sense,  is  the  super- 
man. The  ballot,  indeed,  is  only  one  way  in  which  the 
individual  contributes  to  the  common  welfare  but  its  re- 
sults have  a  permanance  that  other  products  of  personal 
effort  do  not  seem  to  possess.  The  institutions  and  so- 
cial regulations  thus  produced  by  the  will  of  the  people 
have  also  an  "educational  influence  and  are  measured 
morally  by  the  occasions  they  afford  and  the  guidance  they 
supply  for  the  exercise  of  foresight,  seriousness  of  con- 
sideration and  depth  of  regard."  10T 


CHAPTER  VIII 
SOME  PEOBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY 

54.  There  are  certain  obstacles  to  ethical  theory  so 
difficult  to  overcome  that  it  seems  best  to  give  them  sepa- 
rate consideration.     The  attitude  toward  such  problems 
should  be  taken  with  some  care.     An  attempt  should  be 
made  to  discover  a  way  either  to  solve  these  problems,  or 
to  modify  their  force,  or  to  abide  with  them  though  un- 
solved and  unmodified.     Aristotle's  caution  is  applicable: 
"A  man  who  has  been  well-trained  will  not  in  any  case 
look  for  more  accuracy  than  the  nature  of  the  matter 
allows.  .  .  .  We  must  consequently  rest  well  satisfied  if  in 
the  treating  of  such  matter,  and  with  premises  thus  un- 
certain, we  can  exhibit  a  rough  outline  of  the  truth"  (Eth- 
ics, 1.  8). 

There  are  at  least  four  points  of  view  of  the  facts  to  be 
considered,  namely,  their  analysis  and  relation  to  causes, 
their  ethical  import,  their  religious  meaning,  and  their 
interpretation  in  a  theory  of  reality.  The  facts  are  so 
well  known  that  their  analysis  and  causes  may  be,  for  the 
most  part,  assumed.  Chief  attention  will  be  given  to 
their  ethical  import,  while  appeal  will  be  made  to  religion 
and  to  the  theory  of  reality  only  as  suggesting  a  way  out  of 
the  difficulty  when  other  means  of  interpretation  seem  to 
fail.  It  will  not,  however,  be  possible  always  to  keep 
these  points  of  view  distinct. 

55.  The  conception  of  the  state  presented  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  as  the  embodiment  of  freedom  affording 
opportunity  to  realize  the  highest  good  in  personal  life 
by  removing  hindrances  to  its  fulfillment,  encounters  ob- 
stacles in  crime  and  its  punishment  by  fine,   imprison- 

116 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       117 

ment,  and  sometimes  by  death  as  in  the  case  of  murder  and 
treason.  Frequently,  the  social  system  seems  to  bring  in- 
jury upon  the  innocent.  In  war,  the  individual's  service 
and  life  are  given  to  the  state.  How,  then,  is  the  state 
the  embodiment  of  freedom  and  personal  well-being? 
How  does  it  "hinder  hindrances"  when  it  sometimes  de- 
stroys persons?  Or,  is  the  social  or  race  mind  the  true 
permanent  individual  whose  interests  persons  temporarily 
serve? 

Our  chief  difficulty  concerns  war  and  punishment, 
whose  origin  should  be  distinguished  from  their  interpre- 
tation in  a  theory  of  the  state.  Their  origin  may  be 
traced  to  the  instinct  of  pugnacity  and  the  emotion  of 
anger  against  others  of  the  same  species.108  But  punish- 
ment implies  some  mental  effort  to  equate  penalty  and 
offence  which  differentiates  it  from  the  fighting  reactions 
against  interference  with  the  gratification  of  instincts 
which  leads  to  deadly  struggle  between  rivals.  Offences 
range  from  disobedience  of  parental  rules  to  violations  of 
the  social  order,  especially  law,  known  as  crimes  in  which 
the  general  well-being  is  attacked,  it  may  be,  through  the 
injury  of  the  individual.  Within  the  primitive  group, 
punishment  in  the  sense  of  mental  adjustment  of  penalty 
to  offence  does  not  occur.  The  group  acts  as  a  homoge- 
neous unit,  each  member  is  identified  with  the  group  so 
that,  if  one  offends  or  suffers,  all  are  involved  and  hence 
punishment  cannot  take  placed  Children  are  not  pun- 
ished. Whatever  is  foreign  may,  however,  be  attacked. 
If  an  adult  assumes  the  character  of  a  stranger,  he  is 
driven  out  and  may  be  destroyed.  Wherever  there  is  a 
division  of  the  whole  world  into  two  classes,  "kin  who  can- 
not become  enemies,  and  enemies  who  cannot  become 
kin,"  there  is  no  punishment  within  or  between  groups  but 
attack  in  war  of  one  upon  the  other  ceasing  only  with  the 
annihilation  of  the  enemy,  with  no  measurement  of  the 
gravity  of  the  offence  so  as  to  determine  the  amount  of  in- 
jury to  be  inflicted  which  punitive  justice  requires.  No 


118  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

social  relation  exists  between  one  group  and  the  members 
of  another  who  are  treated  abstractly. 

This  primitive  relation  survives  in  modern  interna- 
tional relations,  the  citizens  of  one  nation  not  being  sub- 
ject to  punishment  by  another  whose  attempts  to  redress 
injury  within  another's  territory  would  be  war.  "There 
are  only  two  courses  open  to  an  offended  people  in  such 
a  case.  They  can  send  an  attacking  force  across  the  bor- 
der to  avenge  the  wrong,  but  this  is  not  punishment,  it  is 
war.  The  only  other  course  open  to  the  injured  govern- 
ment is  to  appeal  in  a  friendly  way  for  the  government  of 
the  offenders  to  take  cognizance  of  the  offence  and  do  jus- 
tice. But  clearly  here  the  injured  nation  is  not  punish- 
ing anyone.  They  may  appeal  to  another  to  punish,  but 
this  appeal  is  a  friendly  and  social  act.  Punishment 
must,  therefore,  be  administered  by  the  group  to  which  the 
offender  belongs.  But  we  have  seen  that  when  the  group 
is  homogeneous,  it  is  impossible  for  the  category  of  pun- 
ishment to  have  any  place." 

But  punishment  may  occur  within  the  group  when  it 
becomes  complex  enough  to  permit  at  least  three  parties, 
the  offender,  the  offended,  and  a  mediating  party  with  in- 
terests in  both  who  adjusts  equitably  the  difference  that 
has  arisen.  Hence  punishment  occurs  only  within  com- 
plex societies  in  which  it  is  possible  for  a  mediating  neu- 
tral, such  as  a  judge  and  jury,  in  some  measure  to  fit  the 
penalty  to  the  offence  and  restore  the  interrupted  har- 
mony. In  the  same  manner,  it  seems  possible  that  war,  a 
survival  of  the  primitive  tendency  to  attack  in  order  to  de- 
stroy a  threatening  stranger,  might  give  place  to  a  council 
of  nations  as  a  means  of  adjusting  international  differ- 
ences. Nor  is  it  true  that  war  develops  virtues  that  are 
impossible  in  peace.109 

How  is  punishment,  implying  mediation  by  which  pen- 
alty is  apportioned  to  offence,  to  be  reconciled  with  the 
theory  of  society  and  the  state,  already  approved,  as  the 
embodiment  of  the  ethical  idea  of  freedom  and  of  personal 


SOME    PROBLEMS    OF    ETHICAL    THEORY  119 

welfare,  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  offended 
suffers  and  the  punished  is  restrained  and  perhaps  de- 
stroyed? Such  a  problem  requires  fair  recognition  of 
the  truth  that  "the  creation  of  a  moral  order  on  an  ever- 
growing scale  is  the  great  historical  task  of  mankind,  and 
the  magnitude  of  it  explains  all  short-comings."  "Much 
of  what  is  unfree  and  unhuman  in  our  modern  life  comes 
much  more  from  mere  inadequacy  than  from  ill-inten- 
tion." 110  A  forgery,  for  example,  of  a  bank-cheque  is 
a  complex  event  with  many  antecedents  and  consequents. 
An  understanding  of  the  fact  goes  far  towards  cancelling 
its  criminal  character.  What  was  the  environment  in 
which  the  forger  lived?  What  were  the  character  and 
circumstances  of  the  parents,  the  social  and  economic  con- 
ditions affecting  his  own  life  and  his  physical  condition  ? 
What  of  the  relation  to  the  one  whose  name  is  forged,  the 
motive,  and  the  springs  of  action?  How  far  was  the 
agent  responsible  in  view  of  all  the  conditions?  The 
court  is  only  a  crude  judge  of  the  real  act  We  as 
spectators  should  remember  that  "no  matter  how  mean  or 
hideous  a  man's  life  is,  the  first  thing  is  to  understand 
him;  to  make  out  just  how  it  is  that  our  common  human 
nature  has  come  to  work  out  in  this  way."  Nor  is  the 
spectacle  of  punishment  "for  us  to  gloat  over,  but  to  re- 
mind us  of  our  sins,  which,  as  springing  from  the  same 
nature  and  society,  are  sure  to  be  much  the  same  as  that 
of  the  one  punished."111  Besides,  to  punish  the  offender 
is  apt  to  be  a  condemnation  of  the  social  order  because  it 
fails  to  socialize  its  members  and  too  easily  inflicts 
penalty,  instead  of  removing  hindrances  to  right  living. 
As  Plato  said:  "In  a  perfect  state  no  punishments 
would  be  necessary." 

Theories  of  punishment  have  interpreted  it  as  reform- 
ing the  offender,  chastising  a  rebellious  subject  thereby 
bringing  wrong-doing  clearly  to  mind,  educating  and  cor- 
recting a  faulty  will,  but  this  seems  to  treat  the  of- 
fender as  a  patient  whom  it  is  unjust  to  punish  and  who 


120  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

needs,  instead,  to  be  cured  of  his  malady.  Punishment 
interpretated  as  retributive  coming  upon  the  offender 
because  of  his  deed  has  the  merit  of  definitely  emphasizing 
his  responsibility  and  the  necessity  of  preserving  the 
social  order  and  of  keeping  alive  the  general  conscious- 
ness of  right  which  crime  assails.  But  punishment  as 
retributive,  expiative,  requires  that  it  be  graded  according 
to  the  offence  and  of  this  there  can  be  no  determination 
except  its  deterrent  power  as  it  has  been  learned  by  expe- 
rience. Sometimes  the  offender  welcomes  punishment  as 
an  opportunity  to  put  himself  right  again  with  the  vio- 
lated social  will,  but  more  often  he  rebels  against  the 
penalty  undoubtedly  revealing  some  fault  in  the  working 
of  the  social  organism. 

Punishment  is,  I  think,  best  understood  in  relation  to 
the  theory  of  the  social  order  and  of  the  state  as  involving 
the  true  selfhood  of  its  members,  which  was  presented 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  though  it  is  granted  that  it  does 
not  solve  all  the  problems.  This  view  of  punishment 
assumes  that  the  offender  as  a  person  has  a  share  in  mak- 
ing the  social  order.  Providing,  as  it  does,  opportunity 
of  being  his  true  self,  the  state,  in  its  reaction  upon  the 
offender  in  the  form  of  punishment,  is  only  his  own 
larger  and  better  self  reacting  against  the  lesser  and  false 
self  represented  by  his  unsocial  act.  Punishment,  then, 
reveals  to  the  offender  his  own  will  and  in  this  sense  he 
has  a  right  to  be  punished  and  is  punished  justly,  some- 
times, as  has  been  said,  even  welcoming  the  opportunity 
to  right  the  wrong  done.  "Doubtless  if  an  uneducated 
man  were  told,  in  theoretical  language,  that,  in  being 
punished  for  an  assault  he  was  realizing  his  own  will, 
he  would  think  it  cruel  nonsense,"  and  yet,  it  is  true,  for 
the  state  rests  upon  and  is  the  common  will  in  which  he 
shares  while  the  maxim  of  his  voluntary  act  would  destroy 
the  state.112  Also  "the  primary  right  of  a  criminal  is 
to  be  convicted  of  his  offence.  The  failure  of  justice 
may  be  the  complete  undoing  of  a  human  life.  When 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       121 

a  man  who  is  a  criminal  is  set  free  by  a  court  of  law,  it 
is  doubtless  a  menace  to  society,  but  the  main  point  is 
that  it  is  the  worst  disaster  that  can  happen  to  the  man. 
...  If  the  man  really  needs  a  treatment  which  the  ordi- 
nary citizen  does  not,  society  is  under  obligation  to  give  it 
to  him,  and  in  his  sentence,  society,  too  calm  for  wrath, 
has  done  her  best."  113  For  like  reasons,  a  nation  at  war 
is  simply  the  collective  self  of  its  members  and  hence  they 
owe  it  to  themselves  to  take  up  the  battle  in  behalf  of 
the  state.  To  desert  the  state  in  its  need  is  to  be  false 
to  one's  self. 

The  above  conception  of  punishment  and  war  does  not 
remove  all  difficulties,  for  there  is  still  room  for  doubt, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  penalty  of  death  and  the  loss  of  life 
in  battle.  It  seems  absurd  to  say  that  an  offender  has 
the  right  to  be  put  to  death  as  an  assertion  of  his  true 
self,  but,  in  such  a  case,  the  fault  is  not  in  the  principle 
but  in  the  kind  of  punishment  employed.  May  not  the 
offender,  however  serious  his  crime,  still  be  of  service 
to  the  state?  It  seems  as  though  a  living  man  should  be 
of  more  value  to  his  fellows  than  the  same  man  dead. 
A  better  social  order,  more  adequate  means  of  determin- 
ing the  facts  and  adjusting  the  penalty  to  the  degree  of 
responsibility  seem  necessary  if  the  state  is  adequately 
to  perform  its  function  in  relation  to  its  members.  The 
problem  is  at  best  not  fully  solved  and  we  are  inclined  to 
take  refuge  in  trust  that  a  time  will  come  when  such 
grave  offences  and  terrible  penalties  shall  give  place  to 
good  deeds  and  charitable  relations  which  shall  issue  in 
the  redemption  of  those  who  go  astray.  This  hope  is 
embodied  in  the  conception  of  the  end  of  moral  effort 
as  the  production  of  a  social  mind  which  shall,  in  its 
turn,  bring  forth  individuals  whose  deeds  shall  so  reflect 
the  social  mind  that  offences  shall  not  occur. 

An  objection  114  is  made  to  our  interpretation  of  the 
relation  of  the  individual  to  punishment  and  war  on  the 
ground  that  the  state  which  punishes  and  engages  in  war 


122  MOEAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

is  only  an  institution  among  institutions  and  not  all  inclu- 
sive in  character.  But  I  do  not  think  the  conception  of 
the  state,  against  which  the  objection  is  directed,  means 
that  there  are  not  other  social  institutions  together  with 
the  unformulated  modes  of  action  of  social  groups  and 
individuals  wfliose  function,  including  that  of  the  state, 
is  to  promote  the  common  welfare.  There  seems  to  be 
much  in  Hegel's  view  that  the  state  is  a  universal  concept 
of  the  Life  that  particularizes  itself  in  the  concrete  indi- 
vidual states,  it  is  the  "realized  ethical  idea  .  .  .  spirit 
or  will  in  its  objective  form  .  .  .  the  unity  of  objective 
and  subjective  freedom  .  .  .  the  nation's  spirit  .  .  . 
the  law  which  permeates  all  its  relations,  ethical  observ- 
ances, and  the  consciousness  of  its  individuals.  Hence  the 
constitution  of  a  people  depends  mainly  on  the  kind  and 
character  of  its  self-consciousness.  .  .  .  Every  nation, 
therefore,  has  the  constitution  which  suits  it  ...  and  re- 
produces its  conditions."  115 

These  passages  mean,  I  think,  that  the  growing  life  of 
society  finds  expression  in  its  institutions  which,  at  a 
given  period,  serve  the  ends  of  personal  well-being,  tenta- 
tively modified  as  the  life  develops.  The  same  thought 
is  expressed  by  Lotze  who  regards  human  society,  with  its 
internal  relations,  as  formed  and  developed  "partly  in 
order  to  compensate  the  needs  and  deficiencies  of  indi- 
viduals, partly  in  order  to  make  use  of  the  general  capac- 
ities of  different  individuals  for  the  mutual  benefit  of 
all ;  but  the  general  order  which  results  from  the  systema- 
tization  is  only  valuable  in  proportion  as  it  produces 
some  good  result  which,  coming  back  to  the  individual, 
is  consciously  enjoyed  by  him."  Society  "requires  state 
organization  as  a  necessary  means"  to  this  end  of  free 
development  of  individuality,  and  civil  and  political  ordi- 
nances and  institutions  are  "the  forms  of  human  effort 
in  which  men  struggle  to  reach  the  supreme  good  which 
can  exist  nowhere  but  in  personal  experience."  This 
conception  of  the  relation  between  society  and  the  state 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       123 

"makes  it  seem  possible  to  hopeful  minds  that  the  numer- 
ous states,  which  still  divide  the  world,  may  finally  be 
replaced  by  one  universal  society."  116 

From  this  point  of  view,  war  and  punishment  are  not 
to  be  thought  of  as  supporting  any  fixed  institution,  but 
as  exigencies  by  the  way  which  may  well  be  eliminated 
through  a  more  adequate  appreciation  of  what  is  involved 
in  being  a  person.  It  seems  reasonable  that  wars  will  not 
cease  through  wars,  but  "through  a  growing  realization 
that  they  are  cruel  and  irrational,  that  the  supposed  con- 
flicts between  the  interests  of  nations  are  illusory  and 
that  cooperation  is  more  likely  to  promote  the  happiness 
of  the  average  citizen  than  mutual  slaughter."  117  Pro- 
gress is  not  mere  change  and  the  problem  of  progress 
now  confronting  us,  says  Dewey,  "is  a  problem  of  discov- 
ering the  needs  and  capacities  of  collective  human  nature 
as  we  find  it  aggregated  in  racial  or  natural  groups  on 
the  surface  of  the  globe,  and  of  inventing  the  social 
machinery  which  will  set  available  powers  operating  for 
the  satisfaction  of  those  needs.  To  this  end  there  is  re- 
quired contriving,  constructing  intelligence  and  social 
planning."  "Our  existing  human  intercourse  requires 
some  kind  of  a  mechanism  which  it  has  not  got.  We 
may  drift  along  till  the  evil  gets  intolerable  and  then  take 
some  accidental  Way  out  or  we  may  plan  in  advance, — set 
ourselves  in  deliberate  consultation  to  institute  the  needed 
laws  of  the  intercourse  of  nations,"  118  instead  of  leaving 
the  remedy  to  accidental  clash  and  strife.  The  end  of 
social  welfare  is  constant,  the  institutions  through  which 
it  is  realized  develop  under  1ihe  progressive  realization  of 
the  ethical  spirit.  While  change  is  not  progress,  it  is 
equally  true  that  progress  involves  change  which  may  be 
accompanied  by  the  appearance  of  conflicting  interests, 
which  should  not  deceive  the  understanding  mind  and 
heart. 

The  elimination  of  war  is  sometimes  objected  to  on  the 
ground  that  it  cultivates  the  virtues  of  courage,  wisdom, 


124  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

honor,  and  willingness  to  sacrifice  self  for  great  ends, 
together  with  efficiency  as  nothing  else  does.  It  is  said 
that  a  nation  gains  or  loses  its  soul  according  as  it  does, 
or  does  not,  engage  in  war.  It  is,  indeed,  true  that  war 
makes  demands  which,  if  successfully  met,  powerfully 
influence  character.  But,  it  is  still  possible  that  other 
occasions  furnished  by  social  conditions  may  call  for 
equal  effort  of  will,  and  develop  the  virtues.  This  is 
the  meaning,  I  believe,  of  Nietzsche's  saying  that  "a  good 
war  sanctifies  any  cause"  (Thus  spake  Zarathustra  I.  X.), 
rather  than  that  he  advocated  the  clash  of  armies,  and, 
in  this  sense,  contributed  to  the  outbreak  of  war  in  1914. 
Instead  we  must  war  for  our  thoughts  and  fight  for  the 
best  we  know.  Then  a  good  fight  marks  true  attain- 
ment. But,  according  to  W.  M.  Salter,  Nietzsche  really 
aims  at  the  ideal  human  best  above  nationalities,  at  a 
common  bond — a  task  in  which  all  may  unite.119  Wd 
have  reached  the  moral  ideal  of  the  welfare  of  humanity 
but  the  political  organization  as  means  corresponding  to 
this  conception  is  still  lacking.  There  has  been  progress 
from  isolated  clans  to  the  national  state  and  from  private 
war  and  retaliation  to  the  administration  of  justice  by 
courts  of  law.  The  ideal  of  an  international  federation 
of  states  seems  to  be  not  so  great  a  step  as  the  already 
accomplished  national  state  and  courts,  especially  in  view 
of  the  close  relation  and  interdependence  of  all  peoples 
at  the  present  time. 

56.  Offenders  against  the  social  order  are  often  defect- 
ives who  are  classified  by  Dr.  Goddard,  as  already  stated 
(sec.  10)  in  three  groups;  the  idiot  with  the  mentality 
of  a  normal  child  of  one  or  two  years  of  age ;  the  imbecile, 
three  to  seven,  while  those  of  a  mentality  ranging  from 
eight  to  twelve  years  are  called  feeble-minded  in  a  nar- 
rower sense.  These  feeble-minded  lack  the  capacity  of 
competing  on  equal  terms  with  their  fellows  who  are 
normal  and  of  managing  their  own  affairs  with  prudence. 
They  also  may  lack  will-power  and  the  capacity  to  deal 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       125 

w<ithi  the  environment  with!  normal  intelligence.  Such 
are  the  characteristics  of  one  half  of  the  paupers  in  alms- 
houses,  the  criminals  in  jails,  prisons  and  reformatories 
who  should  be  cared  for,  not  punished.  "A  large  propor- 
tion of  drunkards  are  feeble-minded  and  neither  respon- 
sible for  their  drinking  nor  for  what  they  do  when  intoxi- 
cated. .  .  .  More  than  half  of  the  prostitutes  are  more 
truly  children  than  a  fifteen  year  old  girl ;  they  are  more 
like  children  of  ten  or  twelve  in  their  mentality,  although 
adults  physically.  These  people  need  protection,  not 
punishment  nor  preaching."  It  is  also  probable  that 
many  of  the  "ne'er-do-welPs"  are  also  feeble-minded. 
Two  per  cent.,  in  some  localities  three  per  cent.,  of  the 
school  population  are  feeble-minded  and  the  larger  part 
of  these  have  a  mentality  of  eight  to  twelve  years  of  age. 
Since  it  often  requires  the  expert's  use  of  the  Binet-Simon 
method  of  testing  the  degree  of  mentality  clearly  to  recog- 
nize the  feeble-minded  in  distinction  from  the  normal, 
the  probability  is  that  a  much  larger  per  cent,  of  the  popu- 
lation would  have  to  be  classed  as  feeble-minded,  if  exact 
methods  could  be  applied. 

The  social  problems  involved  are  stupendous,  especially 
since  this  defectiveness  is  chiefly  hereditary  and  since 
the  feeble-minded  rapidly  increase  in  number  if  allowed 
to  propagate.  Practically  the  first  thing  to  be  done  is 
to  recognize  them.  Then  comes  the  task  of  preventing 
their  propagation  and  of  providing  a  suitable  environment 
which  shall  not  make  too  great  demands  upon  the  capacity 
possessed,  the  implication  being  that  not  too  complex  con- 
ditions may  be  adequately  met.  Lacking  in  intelligence 
and  will-power,  yet  with  the  impulses,  instincts  and  phys- 
ical strength  of  adults,  these  persons  easily  become  vic- 
tims of  unfavorable  conditions.  Preventive  and  protec- 
tive measures  should  be  employed,  as  a  result  of  which, 
these  persons,  now  a  burden  and  a  menace  to  society, 
would  live  comfortable,  happy  and,  in  many  cases,  use- 
ful lives,120 


126  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

This  seems  a  sufficient  reply  to  Nietzsche's  protest 
against  what  he  calls  the  "slave-morality"  of  Christianity 
which,  as  he  interprets  it,  would  preserve  the  weak  who, 
instead,  should  be  allowed  to  perish  for  the  sake  of  a 
society  of  those  who  attain  strong,  full  self-hood.121  But 
the  Christian  motive  is  to  save  the  weak,  not  to  keep  them 
helpless  but  that  they  may  become  of  worth  to  themselves 
and  to  their  fellows.  Personal  worth  is  at  best  relative. 

57.  When  the  conception  of  a  mechanism  of  forces  is 
applied  to  the  world  including  man's  life  and  history, 
it  brings  to  light  the  problem  concerning  the  moral  ideal 
as  implying  action  determined  by  ends.  What  attitude 
is  one  to  assume,  for  example,  toward  the  causes  of  feeble- 
mindedness? Arrested  neural  development,  the  details 
of  which  are  not  understood,  results  in  deficient  mental- 
ity, while  normal  physical  and  physiological  condi- 
tions make  a>  good  mind  possible  and  prepare  for  high 
moral  attainment.  The  definition  of  moral  action  was 
found  to  be  difficult,  requiring,  as  it  does,  distinction 
from  non-moral  naturalistic  conditions  as  they  exist  in 
the  animals  and  in  the  early  stages  of  child  life  (sec.  7). 
Even  sunlight,  fresh  air,  food  and  drink,  cleanliness,  lo- 
cality and  many  other  natural  causes  seem  to  have  a  direct 
bearing  upon  the  kind  of  moral  life  attainable.  The 
physical  means  of  communication  are  also  important  in 
moral  development.  If  to  these  physical  conditions  is 
added  the  social  environment  which  seems  to  make  or 
unmake  so  many  characters,  one  is  led  to  ask  whether 
human  nature,  even  in  its  highest  attainment,  is  only  a 
product  of  a  mechanism  of  natural  forces.  But  the  moral 
ideals  seem  to  require  men  to  be  ends  in  a  kingdom  of 
ends.  The  automaton  theory,  so  vividly  described  by 
James,  regards  consciousness  as  an  inefficient  epiphenom- 
enon  attending  neural  processes.  Shadworth  Hodgson 
says :  "The  real  agency  is  not  in  the  consciousness,  but 
in  the  neuro-cerebral  system."  Acts  of  choice  are  only 
"the  evidence  and  record  of  the  selection  of  one  out  of 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       12Y 

several  actions,  originally  perhaps  instinctive  and  uncon- 
scious, of  the  neuro-cerebral  system,  when  they  come  into 
collision,  actions  which  may  come  to  be  accompanied  by 
consciousness  either  before  or  immediately  upon  their 
collision  with  one  another."  Hence  the  will  is  aan  exer- 
cise of  nerve  energy  accompanied  by  the  sense  of  choosing 
between  alternatives."  "Any  scientific  teleology  of  cre- 
ation, whether  optimist  or  pessimist  in  character,  is  an 
empty  dream.  At  the  same  time  we  are  forever  delivered 
from  the  insane  imagination  of  attempting  a  theodicy."  122 
This  view  is  made  more  difficult  to  meet  in  the  form 
of  the  mechanistic  conception  of  life  and  of  consciousness. 
Jacques  Loeb  says:  "The  mechanists  proceed  as  though 
a  complete  and  unequivocal  physico-chemical  analysis  of 
life  were  the  attainable  goal  of  biology.  .  .  .  Nothing 
indicates  at  present  that  the  artificial  production  of  liv- 
ing matter  is  beyond  the  possibilities  of  science."  The 
inner  life  of  hopes,  wishes,  and  moral  effort  "should  be 
amenable  to  physico-chemical  analysis."  .  .  .  "It  seems 
the  only  conception  of  life  which  can  lead  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  source  of  ethics."  123  This  author  holds 
that  scientific  materialism  extends  to  all  spheres  of  knowl- 
edge embraced  by  the  term  philosophy — indeed,  it  is  a  phil- 
osophy based  no  doubt  upon  physiology  but  in  definite 
opposition  to  all  other  systems  of  tphilosophy  and,  of 
course,  to  every  system  of  theology.  Hugh  Elliot  defends 
the  main  propositions  of  scientific  materialism  which,  he 
holds,  are  the  law  of  universal  causation,  the  principle  of 
mechanism  necessitating  the  denial  of  purpose  in  the  uni- 
verse and  "the  denial  that  there  exists  any  form  of  'spirit- 
ual' or  'mental'  entity  that  cannot  be  expressed  in  terms 
of  matter  and  motion."  124  Dr.  Crile  holds  that  "scien- 
tists agree  in  regarding  the  process  of  evolution  as  con- 
tinuous from  the  birth  of  the  earth  in  star  nebulae  to  the 
coming  of  man" — a  process  infinitely  prolonged.  "Myr- 
iads of  ages  must  have  been  required  to  produce  the  first 
ultra-microscopic  particles  of  quasi-living  matter,  which 


128  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

scientists  regard  as  the  probable  step  between  non-living 
and  living  matter.'7  Finally  there  appeared  "the  first 
mass  of  ancestral  colloidal  slime"  from  which  "to  man  is 
a  long  road,  the  conception  of  which  taxes  our  imagina- 
tion to  the  utmost,  but  it  is  an  ascent  which  is  now  fairly 
well  demonstrated.'7  With  the  coming  of  life,  the  evolu- 
tion of  organisms  to  man's  self-conscious  experience  is 
brought  under  the  same  mechanistic  conception.  For  ex- 
ample, the  heliotropism  of  plants  and  animals  is  "essen- 
tially identical  .  .  .  and  occurs  in  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  photo-chemical  action.77  Like  principles  explain 
the  discriminating  response  of  the  Venus7  Fly-trap  to 
stimuli,  and  the  sensational  reaction  of  animals  and  man 
to  stimulation  of  end-organs  of  sense.  Emotions  and  the 
higher  mental  processes  come  under  the  same  laws,  as,  for 
example,  fear  causing  far  reaching  metabolic  disturbances 
as  against  "faith77  which  leads  to  so-called  "faith-cures.77 
In  short,  the  entire  human  mind  is  nothing  apart  from  the 
physico-chemical  processes  of  the  nervous  system.125 

The  mechanistic  conception  of  life  and  mind  presents 
a  formidable  problem  to  the  ethical  theorist  who  should 
give  its  truth  full  recognition  with  a  more  adequate  view 
of  the  nature  of  knowledge  which  we  shall  now  attempt. 
It  is  possible  to  reject  a  "vital  force77  and  a  "spiritual  or 
mental  entity77  and  to  grant  that  neural  processes  condi- 
tion conscious  states,  and  still  have  left  many  logical  and 
philosophical  problems.  It  has  been  shown  (chap.  I)  that 
all  investigation  from  physics  and  chemistry  to  ethics  and 
a  philosophy  of  religion  is  only  an  analytic  constructive 
interpretation  of  the  unity  of  self-conscious  experience. 
The  empirical  psycho-physical  parallelism,  with  which  we 
began  the  discussion  (sec.  9),  recognizes  the  constant  re- 
lation between  conscious,  neural  and  physical  processes 
which  form  a  two-fold  causal  series  within  the  unity  of 
experience.  The  hypothesis  of  a  realm  of  matter  and 
motion  beyond  any  experience,  to  which  it  is  proposed  to 
reduce  the  life  of  self -consciousness,  seems  unintelligible. 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY      129 

But,  keeping  *the  empirical  point  of  view,  we  may  hold 
that  conscious  states  are  conditioned  hy  neural  processes 
and  one  is  as  real  as  the  other.126  In  like  manner,  Eb- 
binghaus  says  that  even'  the  principle  of  the  "conservation 
of  energy,"  which,  according  to  Mill,127  is  an  hypothesis 
often  misunderstood,  is  shown  by  experiments  to  apply 
to  human  life  in  that  "there  is  absolute  equality  between 
the  energy  supplied  (by  food,  etc.)  and  the  energy  given 
out"  in  mental  and  muscular  activity  and,  consequently, 
the  mind  is  subject  to  the  laws  of  the  natural  world.  It 
is,  indeed,  a  parallelism  between  neural  and  psychical 
processes  like  two  chains  running  parallel  link  by  link 
which  should  not  be  held  to  mean  "that  one  of  these  chains 
brings  forth  the  other";  better  is  it  to  regard  them  as 
"being  link  for  link  identical."  Then  we  may  view  mind 
and  brain  as  a  unity  known  in  a  subjective  and  an  ob- 
jective way,  mind  knowing  itself  directly  as  a  complex  of 
sensations,  perceptions,  thoughts,  feelings,  volitions,  con- 
stantly changing  yet  with  something  permanent,  mind 
known  objectively  by  other  minds  as  brain  or  nervous 
system.128  In  much  the  same  manner,  Wundt  holds  to 
the  empirical  unity  of  the  psychical  and  physical  causal 
series  as  constituent  factors  of  our  consciousness.  "There 
is  but  one  reality  in  question ;  and  this  when  we  regard  it 
as  it  is  immediately  given  to  us,  appears  under  the  form 
of  ideas ;  when  we  consider  it  in  the  light  of  its  conceptual 
transformation,  is  a  series  of  movements  in  matter" — a 
"notion  which  signifies  our  experience  of  the  constancy 
of  objects."  129 

It  is  helpful,  says  Professor  Watson,  to  ask  for  whom 
the  supposed  independence  and  correlation  of  body  and 
mental  states  exist.  Whoever  asserts  that  the  two  series 
correspond  must  have  a  knowledge  of  both  within  the  same 
conscious  experience.  "Therefore  we  have  the  result  that 
body  and  mind  are  both  contained  within  mind" ;  in  other 
words,  I  knowing  the  whole  of  my  experience  know  my- 
self as  object  in  distinction  from  my  body  and  its  changes 


130  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

in  relation  to  my  sensations  and  perceptions,  "Body  and 
mind  are  then  known  as  distinguished  aspects  which  can- 
not possibly  be  reduced  to  identity,  but  yet  are  essentially 
correlative  and  are  therefore  different  phases  of  a  single 
known  unity."  13°  The  failure  to  keep  distinct  differ- 
ent points  of  view  which  relate  only  to  the  unity  of  ex- 
perience causes  the  controversy  concerning  the  physico- 
chemical  conception  of  life  and  of  consciousness.  The 
physicist,  chemist,  and  biologist  properly  apply  their 
methods  and  postulates  in  the  investigation  of  phenomena, 
whatever  their  nature.  The  psychologist  likewise  must 
treat  psychical  processes  as  subject  to  the  principles  of 
psychical  causality  supplemented,  when  necessary,  by  re- 
lating them  to  physiological  and  physical  changes.  But 
the  scientific  specialist  should  not  become  dogmatic  in  the 
application  and  use  of  his  methods,  principles  and  postu- 
lates and  should  remember  that  the  true  reality  is  the 
unity  of  self-conscious  experience  whose  analysis  and  in- 
terpretation the  sciences  undertake,  no  one  nor  all  of  them 
together  being  able  fully  to  embody  self-conscious  life 
itself.  The  same  truth  is  forcefully  expressed  by  Mc- 
Taggart  in  his  interpretation  of  the  Hegelian  Dialectic : 

"Without  the  dialectic  we  might  suppose  Life  to  be  an 
effect  of  certain  chemical  combinations ;  with  it  we  find 
that  chemism  is  an  abstraction  from  Life,  so  that  where- 
ever  there  is  chemism  there  must  be  Life  also.  With- 
out the  dialectic,  again,  we  might  suppose  self -conscious- 
ness to  be  a  mere  effect  of  animal  life ;  with  it  we  are 
compelled  to  regard  all  life  as  merely  relative  to  some 
self-consciousness."  "The  dialectic  professes  to  show 
that  the  lower  categories  are  contained  in  the  higher  in  a 
manner  .  .  .  resembling  that  in  which  a  foot  is  related 
to  a  body.  The  success  of  the  dialectic,  therefore,  means 
no  less  than  this — that,  for  purposes  of  ultimate  expla- 
nation, we  reverse  the  order  of  science  and  the  under- 
standing, and,  instead  of  attempting  to  account  for  the 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY      131 

higher  phenomena  of  nature  (that  is,  those  which  prima 
facie  exhibit  the  higher  categories)  by  means  of  the  laws 
of  the  lower,  we  account  for  the  lower  by  means  of  the 
laws  of  the  higher.  •  The  interest  of  this  for  the  theoret- 
ical reason  is  obvious,  and  its  importance  for  the  prac- 
tical reason  is  no  less,  since  the  lower  categories  are 
those  of  matter  and  the  higher  those  of  spirit."  131 

This  would  require  that  the  parts  be  viewed  in  relation 
to  the  whole  which  gives  to  each  its  significance  and  value. 
Consequently,  to  say  that  we  are  only  conscious  automata 
and  that  the  real  agent  is  the  neural  mechanism  is  to  re- 
verse the  proper  relation  of  parts  to  whole  and  to  forget 
that  the  principles  and  categories  of  a  lower  part  cannot 
explain  the  higher  nor  can  all  together  fully  embody  the 
unity  of  self-conscious  immediate  life  which  makes  them 
possible  and  is  the  true  reality. 

The  representatives  of  the  physico-chemical  explana- 
tion of  life  and  of  consciousness  may  not  think  that  we 
thus  grant  all  that  can  be  legitimately  claimed  for  their 
conceptions  and  methods  which  have  their  proper  place  in 
the  unity  of  self-conscious  experience  from  which  they  can- 
not be  abstracted  so  as  to  make  the  self  and  its  experience 
the  effect  of  matter  and  motion  regarded  as  non-empirical 
causes.  As  Professor  Watson  says: 

"Analysis  and  synthesis,  in  each  of  the  special  sciences, 
always  proceed  on  a  basis  of  abstraction.  From  the 
point  of  view  of  mechanics  we  cannot  go  beyond  the 
elements  determined  for  us  by  our  primary  abstraction 
just  as  in  chemistry  no  combination  of  elements  will 
yield  any  solution  of  the  problem  of  biology.  The  at- 
tempt to  explain  the  facts  of  life  in  mechanical  terms 
is  therefore  foredoomed  to  failure;  and  with  this  fail- 
ure the  whole  foundation  of  naturalism  crumbles 
away.  ...  It  confuses  the  proposition,  that  there  are 
no  living  processes  without  mechanism,  with  the  very 
different  proposition,  that  living  processes  are  nothing 


132  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

but  mechanism.  It  is  the  former  proposition  that  gives 
to  naturalism  its  plausibility ;  while  it  is  the  latter  that 
it  supposes  itself  to  make  good.7' 132 

We,  however,  gladly  avail  ourselves  of  this  more  ade- 
quate interpretation  of  such  conceptions  as  cause,  force, 
matter,  motion,  mechanism  and  teleology,  for  these  and 
other  categories  have  their  proper  place  in  our  experience 
but  are  themselves  in  inseparable  relation. 

The  entire  problem  appears  in  full  force  in  the  relation 
of  mechanism  and  teleology,  which  for  us  are  concepts 
that  imply  each  other  and  are  necessary  in  the  interpreta- 
tion of  experience.  They  are  two  ways  of  regarding  the 
same  facts  which  Hoffding  illustrates  by  the  example  of 
those  who  perish  in  a  shipwreck  brought  about  by  a  storm 
at  sea.  The  ship  simply  could  not  resist  wind  and  waves 
and  the  men  died  because  they  could  not  breathe  under 
water.  These  natural  causes  explain  the  event.  But  at 
the  funeral  the  disaster  is  referred  to  a  dispensation  of 
divine  Providence.133  Must  one  method  of  explanation 
be  neglected  in  favor  of  the  other,  or  are  both  necessary  ? 
It  is  evident  that  one's  mood  and  attitude  are  apt  to  de- 
termine the  individual's  reply,  while  only  logical  theory 
can  decide  their  true  relation  and  the  question  finally  in- 
volves the  conception  of  reality. 

It  will  now  be  shown  that  mechanism  and  teleology  are 
not  exclusive,  for  events  may  be  the  product  of  natural 
causes  yet  fulfill  ends.  Kant  resolved  the  antinomy  of 
mechanism  and  teleology,  or  natural  and  final  causes,  by 
showing  that 

"nature  is  to  be  judged  on  two  distinct  principles,  the 
mechanical  and  the  teleological  but  these  in  no  way  con- 
flict with  each  other."  In  the  scientific  investigation 
of  natural  phenomena,  "we  ought  in  all  cases  reflec- 
tively to  judge  them  by  the  principle  of  natural  mech- 
anism. .  .  .  But  this  in  no  way  prevents  us,  if  occasion 
is  given  for  it,  from  following  the  guiding  thread  of 


SOME  PEOBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEOEY      133 

the  second  principle  in  our  reflection  upon  certain 
natural  forms,  and  even  by  instigation  of  these  upon  the 
whole  of  nature,  the  principle,  namely,  of  final  cause, 
which  is  quite  distinct  from  that  employed  in  the  ex- 
planation of  natural  mechanism."  There  is  nothing  in 
the  phenomena  of  nature  to  show  that  in  its  inner 
ground  "conjunction  by  physical  mechanism  and  con- 
junction by  ends  may  not  themselves  be  connected  to- 
gether in  the  same  thing  by  one  principle,"  which,  "by 
the  constitution  of  our  intellectual  faculty  we  are  com- 
pelled to  seek  in  an  original  intelligence  as  the  cause  of 
the  world."  134 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the  history  of  thought  since 
Kant  concerning  the  inseparable  relation  of  the  concepts 
of  mechanism  and  teleology,  or  natural  and  final  causes. 
For  Hegel,  they  are  a  pair  of  categories  implying  each 
other  and  finally  leading  to  the  conception  of  reality  as 
Life  and  Spirit  (Logic:  sees.  121;  153-156;  204).  Lotze 
in  the  Microcosmus  charmingly  shows  how  not  only  na- 
ture but  the  history  of  mankind  may  be  understood  as  a 
mechanism  through  which,  however,  the  good  is  being 
realized.  Other  examples  of  the  subordination  of  the 
causal  mechanism  to  ends  might  be  given  (See  Miinster- 
berg:  Eternal  Values,  121  £.),  but  these  are  sufficient  to 
show  that  whatever  is  given  may  be  regarded  in  two  ways ; 
its  scientific  explanation  by  efficient  causes  and  its  inter- 
pretation in  view  of  ends;  in  other  words,  there  are  two 
ways  of  answering  the  question :  Why  ?  first,  the  reference 
of  ,an  event  to  its  causes,  which  is  relatively  easy  but  is 
sometimes  attended  with  doubt  and  the  regression  is  al- 
ways limited;  secondly,  the  assignment  of  the  purpose  of 
the  same  event,  which  may  likewise  be  limited,  and  varies 
in  certainty,  but  is  either  the  ultimate,  or  embraced  in  the 
ultimate,  end  or  final  cause  subordinated  to  nothing  be- 
yond itself.  Both  answers  are  subject  to  the  attitudes  of 
the  interpreter  who  stops  searching  for  efficient  and 


134  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

final  causes  when  he  is  satisfied  with  the  relations  estab- 
lished, and  he  may  be  too  easily  satisfied.  The  sinking  of 
a  ship  with  loss  of  life  is  scientifically  explained  by  the 
difference  in  the  specific  gravity  of  the  water  and  the 
vessel's  material.  There  are  other  cooperating  causes  such 
as  the  explosion  of  a  torpedo.  But  what  was  the  purpose 
in  this  event  in  the  history  of  the  race  and  in  the  divine 
Providence?  We  believe  there  is  some  supreme  end  em- 
bracing all  lesser  purposes.  If  this  belief  becomes  definite 
enough  to  be  assigned,  its  content  is  always  what  is  prag- 
matically  most  satisfying  to  mind  and  heart.  But  it  is 
impossible  to  escape  a  painful  sense  of  the  limitations  of 
our  knowledge  of  both  efficient  and  final  causes  whose 
ultimate  unity  is  postulated.  Human  life  and  conduct 
fall,  then,  within  both  mechanism  and  teleology,  scientifi- 
cally explicable  by  natural  causes  yet  to  be  interpreted  in 
view  of  ends,  though  it  may  not  be  possible  to  do  more 
than  formally  postulate  the  Highest  Good  to  be  realized 
in  personal  experience.  Care  should  be  taken  lest,  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  supreme  end,  we  draw  too  strongly 
upon  our  faith  in  a  destiny  befitting  what  we  are  pleased 
to  call  human  worth  and  dignity. 

There  is  still  another  difficulty  in  the  relation  of  mech- 
anism and  teleology  to  which  Bergson  calls  attention.  It 
is  that  both  involve  the  conception  of  reality  as  a  closed 
system  in  which  free  will  and  the  reality  of  time  are  im- 
possible, for  freedom  requires  an  "open"  future  not  totally 
determined  either  by  mechanical  forces  or  an  inclusive 
plan  already  complete  in  the  consciousness  of  some  su- 
preme designer.  Hence,  in  order  to  save  freedom  and  the 
reality  of  time  as  real  duration  in  personal  experience  and 
in  the  world,  the  fixity  and  determinateness  of  mechanism 
and  teleology  have  to  be  replaced  by  what  Bergson  calls 
"Creative  Evolution."  This  is  not  the  place  nor  is  it 
necessary  to  explain  in  detail  this  creative  evolution. 
Thought,  the  intellect,  deals  with  the  static,  the  inert,  the 
lifeless,  the  spatial,  with  matter, — a  conception  of  sci- 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY      135 

ence  essentially  that  of  Descartes  and  Kant.  Here  all  is 
fixed,  determined,  and  to  find  the  free  life  of  will  and  the 
reality  of  duration,  we  must  ascend  from  the  objective, 
spatial  and  static  to  inner  experience  with  its  interpenetra- 
tion  of  qualitatively  different  states.  This  inner  sense  of 
duration  and  free  life  "blazing  up"  in  ever  new  experi- 
ences, not  subject  to  the  objectives  of  reason,  is  true  free- 
dom. Hence,  in  order  to  save  the  reality  of  time  and  free 
will,  Bergson  relegates  both  mechanism  and  teleology  to 
the  objective  spatial  realm  with  which  the  intellect  deals 
from  which  we  have  to  withdraw  into  the  inner  life  to  be 
in  touch  with  true  reality  as  it  is  in  our  living  experience 
of  will  and  duration  with  its  "open"  future. 

This  position  is  skillfully  met  by  Dr.  Cunningham  who 
says  that  Bergson  fails  to  appreciate  the  fact  that  our 
"thought-will"  experience  is  always  in  time  and  is  teleo- 
logical,  that  these  ends  grow  out  of  the  past  whiHh.  is  linked 
with  the  present  and  prepares  for  the  future.  These  ends, 
however,  take  shape  and  are  gradually  defined  in  the  grow- 
ing experience.  Thought  in  its  relation  to  experience  has 
a  proper  place  for  the  mechanical  method  of  treating 
these  objects,  while  the  reality  of  time,  involving  a  real 
progress  towards  ends,  is  assured  by  the  fact  that  these 
ends  themselves  become  defined  as  the  experience  pro- 
gresses. But  Bergson's  conception  of  teleology  is  the  old 
idea  of  a  plan  completely  predetermined  and  existent  in 
the  mind  of  the  designer,  and  hence  is  irreconcilable  with 
both  freedom  and  the  reality  of  time. 

Now,  since  "the  organizing  principle  of  reality  is  like- 
wise the  organizing  principle  of  conscious  experience,"  we 
may  substitute  for  "Creative  Evolution"  what  Dr.  Cun- 
ningham calls  "Creative  Finalism"  whose  purpose  is  to  do 
full  justice  to  mechanism  and  teleology  as  well  as  to  the 
reality  of  time  and  freedom.  Our  experience  is  a  vo- 
litional rational  process  in  time  creating  and  defining  ends 
as  the  experience  progresses.  Thus  by  analogy,  we  may 
say  that  likewise 


136  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

"Creative  finalism  views  reality  as  an  organic  process 
which  is  through  and  through  teleological.  Its  funda- 
mental nature  is  to  create  ends,  to  produce  tendencies 
and  to  govern  itself  according  to  its  own  creations. 
These  ends  are  progressively  denned  and  revised  with 
the  advancing  process  in  which  they  operate;  they  can 
never  be  finally  and  completely  defined,  and  the  process 
is,  therefore,  unending.  Its  homogeneous  nature  is 
necessitated  by  the  fact  that  within  it  there  is  always  an 
ideal  dimension  by  means  of  which  its  past  and  future 
are  inextricably  involved  in  each  other;  this  ideal  di- 
mension, the  dynamic  imagination,  functions  in  the 
present,  and  binds  past,  present  and  future  into  an 
organic  whole.  Though  it  can  never  be  described  as 
just  this  or  just  now,  still  it  is  always  identical  with  it- 
self, and  possesses  a  determinate  content.  In  short,  it 
is  such  a  process  as  volitional  rational  beings  know  most 
intimately  in  their  own  living  experience."  135 

There  is  much  to  commend  in  Dr.  Cunningham's  effort 
to  provide  for  the  reality  of  time,  ends  and  the  mechanis- 
tic conceptions  of  science;  still,  there  remains  the  sus- 
picion that  he  admits  at  the  back  door  what  he  so  skillfully 
elsewhere  expels,  namely,  the  fixity  against  which  Bergson 
protests  in  his  subordination  of  mechanism  and  teleology 
on  the  ground  that  they  make  real  time  and  freedom  re- 
quiring an  "open"  future  impossible.  The  same  diffi- 
culties, I  think,  seem  to  be  in  the  critic's  "ideal  dimen- 
sion" "always  identical  with  itself  and  possessing  a  de- 
terminate content"  which  "binds  past,  present  and  future 
into  an  organic  whole."  Is  such  an  "ideal  dimension" 
consistent  with  a  real  taking  shape  and  defining  of  ends 
which  "creative  finalism"  affirms?  Does  this  "ideal  di- 
mension .  .  .  with  a  determinate  content  binding  all  into 
an  organic  whole"  join  our  high  resolve  in  moral  action 
with  the  inhibited  mentality  of  the  feeble-minded  whose 
development  has  been  arrested  by  natural  causes?  At 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY      137 

best,  difficulty  remains,  though  the  problem  is  not  wholly 
impenetrable. 

58  Personal  development  requires  the  community 
and  the  state,  but  it  would  seem  to  be  easier  to  win  moral 
victories  in  retirement.  The  mediaeval  monk  in  his  cell 
had  his  temptations  to  which  he  often  yielded,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, the  Priest  in  Hugo's  "Notre  Dame,"  but  his  task 
seems  easy  compared  with  what  the  modern  man  en- 
counters in  the  struggle  to  realize  the  moral  ideal.  Is 
there  not  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  the  cultivation  of  the 
virtues  in  the  quiet  and  peace  of  a  secluded  life?  Sup- 
pose one  to  live  undisturbed  by  the  ambitions  and  tempta- 
tions of  the  market-place,  social  functions  and  politics,  or 
by  the  courts  and  even  by  the  church.  Let  there  be  re- 
flection upon  nature,  literature  and  art  with  sufficient  la- 
bor to  maintain  health  and  to  provide  the  necessaries  of 
life.  Devotional  writers  exhort  to  private  meditation  and 
prayer,  as,  for  example,  S.  D.  Gordon's  "Quiet  Talks  on 
Power"  and  "on  Prayer."  There  are  religious  retreats 
for  purifying  and  strengthening  the  soul.  Under  such 
conditions,  there  would  seem  to  be  some  prospect  of  at- 
taining the  virtues.  But  what  hope  of  success  is  there,  if 
personality  and  the  moral  ideal  are  such  that  the  good  life 
has  to  be  gained,  if  at  all,  in  the  complex  relations  of 
modern  society?  Every  person  is  subject  to  world-wide 
influences.  The  remotest  foreigner  is  our  neighbor. 
Need  is  everywhere.  Poor  and  rich  constantly  irritate 
each  other.  Ignorance,  superstition,  stupidity,  crime, 
vice,  and  the  rest  of  the  brood  of  wretchednesses  prevail. 
How  far  do  our  obligations  extend  ? 

After  generations  of  effort  to  improve  social  conditions, 
to  plead  the  cause  of  poor  and  weak,  war  destroys  its  mil- 
lions. Are  we  still  to  believe,  as  Bosanquet  says,  that 
the  nation-state  is  a  faith,  a  purpose,  a  religion,  a  work- 
ing conception  of  life,  whose  beneficent  function  is  to 
establish  the  rights  to  physical  and  mental  freedom,  to 
property,  to  education,  and  all  the  other  civil  and  politi- 


138  MORAL    LIFE   AND    EELIGION 

cal  rights  which  have  been  the  result  of  generations  of 
experience?  Or,  are  our  standards  wrong  and  our  dis- 
tress of  mind  and  heart  over  the  failure  of  cherished 
ideals  unnecessary? 

It  is  at  this  point  that  Nietzsche  makes  the  startling 
declaration  that  it  is  his  mission  to  deliver  the  Western 
mind  from  the  infection  of  morality  and  of  Christianity 
because  of  their  false  ideals  of  worth.  There  should 
be  a  "transvaluation  of  all  values"  (Die  Umwertung  aller 
Werte),  in  the  light  of  which  our  unhappiness  over  moral 
failures  is  without  reason.  If  prevailing  moral  ideals 
should  yield  to  their  direct  opposites,  what  is  now  good 
would  be  bad  and  bad  good  and  our  moral  failures  and 
sense  of  guilt  would  be  illusions. 

Although  Nietzsche's  sayings  are  so  unusual  that  there 
is  little  agreement  among  his  interpreters,  I  think  his 
"transvaluation  of  values"  is  an  extreme  expression  of  the 
psychological  principle,  already  adopted,  that  standards 
and  ideals  of  action  need  to  be  and  are  constantly  re- 
constructed by  the  individual  and  society  as  social  life  de- 
velops and  that  it  is  only  through  these  reconstructions  of 
the  norms  of  action  that  progress  is  possible  (sec.  47). 
Nor  does  it  require  the  trenchant  pen  of  Nietzsche  to  show 
false  standards  of  morals  and  of  Christian  living.  If 
Christianity  teaches  "another-worldness"  to  the  neglect  of 
life  in  this  world,  or  a  suppression  of  instincts  to  the 
injury  of  the  proper  functioning  of  the  powers  we  pos- 
sess, it  is  mistaken.  It  is,  however,  against  such  per- 
versions of  true  Christianity  that  Nietzsche  inveighs  when 
he  says: 

"It  was  only  Christianity  which,  with  its  funda- 
mental resentment  against  life,  made  something  impure 
out  of  sexuality;  it  flung  filth  at  the  very  basis,  the 
very  first  condition  of  our  life."  Or  again:  "What 
is  more  harmful  than  any  vice? — Practical  sympathy 
with  all  the  botched  and  the  weak — Christianity." 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY      139 

"The  sick  animal  man — the  Christian."  "Christian- 
ity has  set  a  ban  upon  all  fundamental  instincts  of  this 
(higher)  type,  and  has  distilled  evil  and  the  devil  him- 
self out  of  these  instincts:  the  strong  man  as  the  typi- 
cal pariah,  the  villain.  .  .  .  What  I  maintain  is  this, 
that  all  the  values  upon  which  mankind  builds  its 
highest  hopes  and  desires  are  decadent  values"  (Twi- 
light of  the  Idols."  119  f.  130  f.). 

Christianity,  however,  properly  interpreted  has  no  "re- 
sentment against  life"  and  would,  I  think,  even  with 
Nietzsche,  glorify  sexuality  as  the  basis  of  the  family  and 
the  home  with  their  love,  beauty  and  strength.  In  a  re- 
markable passage  in  "The  Will  to  Power"  (tr.  132-135), 
Nietzsche  exalts  Christ,  distinguishing  between  Him  and 
the  Christianity  of  creeds,  dogmas,  and  beliefs  which  are 
anti-Christ. 

"It  is,"  he  says,  "an  unprecedented  abuse  of  names  to 
identify  such  manifestations  of  decay  and  such  abor- 
tions as  'the  Christian  Church/  'Christian  belief/  and 
'Christian  life'  with  that  Holy  Name.  .  .  .  Jesus  goes 
straight  to  the  heart,  the  Kingdom  of  heaven  in  the 
heart  .  .  .  has  nothing  to  do  with  superterrestrial 
things.  The  kingdom  of  God  cometh,  not  chronologi- 
cally or  historically,  not  on  a  certain  day  in  the  calen- 
dar ;  it  is  not  something  which  one  day  appears  and  was 
not  previously  there ;  it  is  a  change  of  feeling  in  the  indi- 
vidual, it  is  something  which  may  come  at  any  time 
and  which  may  be  absent  at  any  time.  .  .  .  Jesus  bids 
us ; — not  to  resist,  either  by  deeds  or  in  our  heart,  him 
who  ill-treats  us;  He  bids  us  admit  of  no  grounds  for 
separating  ourselves  from  our  wives;  He  bids  us  make 
no  distinction  between  foreigners  and  felloAV-country- 
men,  strangers  and  familiars;  He  bids  us  show  anger 
to  no  one,  and  treat  no  one  with  contempt;  give  alms 
secretly ;  not  to  desire  to  become  rich ;  not  to  swear ;  not 
to  stand  in  judgment;  become  reconciled  with  our 


140  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGIOIT 

enemies  and  forgive  offences ;  not  to  worship  in  public. 
.  .  .  Blessedness  is  nothing  promised;  it  is  here  with 
us,  if  we  only  wish  to  live  and  act  in  a  particular  way. 
.  .  .  All  that  which  in  the  ecclesiastical  sense  is  Christ- 
ian, is  just  exactly  what  is  most  radically  anti-Christian; 
crowds  of  things  and  people  appear  instead  of  symbols, 
history  takes  the  place  of  eternal  facts,  it  is  all  forms, 
rites  and  dogmas  instead  of  a  'practice'  of  life." 

Nietzsche,  I  believe,  is  here  searching,  like  ourselves  for 
the  deeper  meaning  of  life  which  is  not  to  be  found  in 
bondage  to  the  mechanism  of  material  things  and  to  eccles- 
iastical formulas  but  in  the  "practice  of  life'7  which  leads 
to  the  superior  excellence  of  personality.  It  is  this  prin- 
ciple which  makes  it  right  to  have  new  standards  and  "the 
will  to  power"  over  the  self  that  shall  make  this  supreme 
meaning  of  life  effective.  Surely  the  true  follower  of 
Christ  should  strive  to  remove  the  causes  of  poverty,  dis- 
ease, intemperance  and  crime  by  making  the  weak  strong 
in  body  and  mind  so  that  they  may  have  true  worth. 
Indeed,  the  Christian's  duty  and  function  are  to  embody 
and  represent  Christ's  mind  concerning  the  events  of  the 
present  (Phil.  4.  7). 

For  us,  too,  as  well  as  for  Nietzsche,  it  is  a  false  mor- 
ality which  forbids  the  fulfillment  of  the  natural  pow- 
ers and  instincts,  which  should  be  brought  into  harmony 
with  well-chosen  ends.  Thus  far  we  too  proclaim  the 
Overman.  But,  when  Nietzsche  tries  to  describe  his  ideal 
he  becomes  vague  and  gives  offence  to  many,  for  his  lan- 
guage is  easily  interpreted  to  mean  something  different 
from  the  longing  for  exaltation,  peace,  and  spiritual  power 
which  I  believe  he  sought.  We  are  prepared  to  agree, 
and  yet  to  differ,  when  he  says:  "People  live  for  the 
present,  they  live  at  top  speed, — they  certainly  live  with- 
out any  sense  of  responsibility;  and  this  is  precisely  what 
they  call  freedom.' '  Whatever  is  true  in  this  statement  is 
a  commonplace  which  does  not  represent  the  deep  spirit 
of  modern  social  life,  nor  does  any  people  seek  such  an 


SOME    PROBLEMS    OF    ETHICAL    THEORY  141 

impulsive  immediate  freedom.  Certainly  we  have  not 
presented  any  such  conception  of  society  and  the  state 
as  realizing  the  freedom  that  belongs  to  personality  (sees. 
24,  52).  The  trend  of  social  life  is  more  nearly  in  ac- 
cord with  his  own  conception  of  the  strong  Super- 
man than  Nietzsche  was  aware.  But  he  does  not  show 
what  measure  of  strength  is  required  to  be  the  Superman. 
Certainly  the  Superman  must  not  exceed  his  part  in  the 
whole  in  which  no  part  is  properly  higher  or  lower  than 
others  but  all  have  their  just  place  in  the  unity,  thus  re- 
quiring that  the  term,  Superman,  should  mean  one  who 
freely  and  adequately  does  his  part  in  the  common  life 
of  humanity. 

If  Nietzsche  had  stated  his  meaning  in  simple,  matter 
of  fact  language,  I  think  that,  while  it  would  be  wel- 
come, it  would  only  show  him  to  be  one  of  the  many  who 
seek  the  Way  of  Life  and,  therefore,  not  especially  not- 
able. In  fact,  his  meaning  seems  to  be  like  our  own  in 
many  respects.  The  source  of  the  moral  is,  indeed,  with- 
in one's  inner  life.  While  this  ideal  requires  us  to  be 
natural,  it  is  not  merely  instinctive,  for  natural  powers 
are  to  be  subordinated  to  some  self-imposed  norm  in  the 
light  of  which  truths  are  known  and  the  good  revealed. 
Nietzsche,  like  ourselves,  feels  the  difficulty  of  reconcil- 
ing universality  with  the  personally  imposed  moral  ideal 
which  can  be  universal  only  if  the  individual  has  his 
place  in  an  order  of  values.  The  "will  to  power"  does 
not  mean  only  the  might  of  muscle  but  also  that  power 
which  belongs  to  excellence  of  soul.  Just  how  this  high- 
est power  should  be  conceived  Nietzsche  does  not  explain, 
probably  because  no  one  can  do  more  than  state  formally 
what  man  is  to  become.  Mere  duration  of  existence,  or 
happiness,  or  satisfaction  of  the  multitude,  or  the  Soph- 
ist's "might  is  right,"  does  not  represent  his  ideal  which 
is  more  like  that  of  Plato  or  Aristotle.  Indeed,  it  seems 
to  me,  that,  in  his  effort  to  conceive  the  ideal  of  the  Super- 
man, he  tends  to  become  a  mystic  who  finds  in  the  depths 


142  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

of  the  soul,  or  in  the  mind  of  the  race,  the  meaning  of 
both  life  and  reality.  But  this  ideal  man  is  strong  with 
the  power  that  belongs  to  purity,  intelligence  and  well- 
rounded,  full  life.  Eucken  says  it  is  a  vague  ideal  with 
a  trace  of  Romanticism  that  floats  before  his  mind  as  he 
tries  to  attain  a  life  sufficient  in  itself.  His  longing  for 
an  inner  exaltation  would  naturally  have  led  him  to  re- 
ligion had  he  not  been  hindered  by  his  dependence  upon 
the  ideals  of  the  time.  He  has  the  ancient  ideal  of  a 
life  of  quiet  peace  and  plastic  beauty  Which  clashes  with 
the  modern  idea  of  progress  and  power.  This  higher 
conception  of  life  he  identifies  with  the  Superman  whose 
chief  excellence  seems  to  be  to  will  to  have  the  will  to 
power,  that  is,  to  will  to  have  and  make  effective  what- 
ever fulfills  the  meaning  of  life. 

Nietzsche  rightly  makes  truth  and  goodness  subordinate 
to  life.  It  is  through  the  excellence  of  persons,  especially 
the  superior  individual,  that  true  humanity  is  maintained 
and  promoted.  Just  as  some  plants  take  nitrogen  from 
the  air  to  enrich  the  soil  that  produces  them,  so  do  cer- 
tain superior  persons  living  in  dependence  upon  ideals 
elevate  the  social  order  making  larger,  freer  individuality 
possible.  It  is  the  sound  and  strong  who  keep  alive  our 
confidence  in  existence.  Egoism  is  justified  in  the  sense 
of  strong,  full  life  of  the  highest  type.  Altruism,  even 
to  sacrifice  of  life  in  order  to  preserve  and  promote  those 
of  superior  worth  through  whom  mankind  is  to  reach  still 
higher  levels,  is  obligatory.  It  is  not  the  gospel  of  might, 
but  rather  that  the  strong  soul  should  take  our  burdens,  as 
becomes  the  stronger. 

Nevertheless,  Nietzsche  does  not  adequately  conceive 
the  mission  that  falls  to  heroes  and  to  great  men  to  lead 
their  brothers  to  light  and  life.  The  Superman,  after  he 
has  attained  his  end,  seems  to  hold  himself  aloof  with 
a  sense  of  his  superiority  to  the  masses  who  have  made 
him  possible.  Sacrifice  for  the  noble  is  justified  but 
scarcely  for  the  unworthy,  and  yet  the  Superman  and 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY      143 

Christ  who  died  for  sinners  have  something  in  common. 
Both  protest  against  following  the  crowd  and  yielding  ad- 
herence to  established  customs  and  values.  Neither  is  in- 
clined to  overestimate  morality.  Both  teach  that  the  fun- 
damental characteristic  of  perfection  is  to  rise  above  the 
world  of  sense  and  desire  to  a  higher  and  inner  life.  But 
in  Jesus'  ideal  there  is  no  self-adoration,  no  haughtiness, 
no  contempt  for  the  masses,  instead,  a  deep  longing  and 
sympathy  for  those  who  sorely  need  fostering  care.  In 
Jesus,  high  worth  serves,  bears  burdens,  grieves  over  sin 
and  guilt  and  suffers  vicariously,  the  just  for  the  unjust. 
For  Jesus,  "to  be  good  is  to  do  good,  and  to  suffer  evil, 
and  to  persevere  therein  to  the  end."  In  Jesus,  too,  and 
in  the  Christian  ideal,  is  also  the  longing  for  the  trans- 
cendent, the  abiding  confidence  that  this  world  is  inade- 
quate. A  higher  reality  is  to  be  found  in  the  perfected 
ideal. 

The  startling  assertion  of  "the  transvaluation  of  all 
values,"  which  seems  to  mean  that  we  have  hitherto  mis- 
conceived the  meaning  of  life  when  we  grieve  over  moral 
failures  and  misinterpreted  Jesus  and  Christianity,  is  due, 
I  think,  to  Nietzsche's  imperfect  understanding  of  moral- 
ity and  Christianity.136  But  there  is  a  truth  in  the 
ideal  of  the  Superman  which  accords  with  the  message 
of  Jesus  and  with  the  deeper  moral  consciousness.  But 
Jesus'  ideal  is  equally  strong  and  far  more  inviting  who 
teaches  that  righteousness  and  obedience  to  the  law  of 
brotherly  love,  united  with  justice,  shall  ultimately  pre- 
vail. Though  startled  by  the  proposed  reversal  of  our 
beneficent  principles  inherited  from  generations  of  effort 
to  increase  human  welfare,  we  still  feel  the  obligation  to 
strive  for  the  improvement  of  social  conditions,  beginning 
the  task  by  setting  in  order  our  own  life,  so  that  the  many 
and  not  merely  the  favored  few  may  attain  well  being. 
To  surrender  these  principles  would  be  to  yield  up  our 
own  reality,  for  they  are  the  principles  of  life  and  con- 
duct which  constitute  our  reality  as  ethical  personalities. 


144  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

If  there  are  insoluble  problems  involved  in  these  prin- 
ciples, they  rise  out  of  the  mystery  of  human  existence. 
Nor  could,  these  principles  have  truth  except  they  be  valid- 
ated in  experience,  for  truth  is  a  veritable  word  made 
flesh,  clothed  upon  with  affection,  will  and  thought;  in- 
deed, the  truth,  in  order  to  be,  has  to  be  lived.  If  truth 
seems  hard  to  understand  and  apply,  it  is  due  to  the  nature 
of  life  itself — a  living  duration  which  Bergson  so  vividly 
describes  yet  fails  to  reveal.  This  makes  truth  and 
reality  empirical,  and,  so  far  as  the  teachings  of  Nietzsche 
can  be  lived,  loved  and  willed,  they  are  already  accepted; 
otherwise  they  are  neither  true  nor  real.137 

59.  The  objection  is  made  in  various  forms  that  the 
moral  ideal,  itself  differently  interpreted,  is  essentially 
incapable  of  fulfillment  and  hence  imposes  no  obligation, 
for  the  impossible  cannot  be  a  duty.  It  is,  therefore, 
necessary  to  show  that  not  only  presently  but  ultimately 
unfulfilled  ideals  are  consistent  with  moral  attainment 
and  yet  inseparable  from  the  moral  life.  Some  forms  of 
•this  objection  have  already  been  considered,  such  as  the 
differences  in  personal  life,  and  the  "transvaluation  of 
all  values,"  which  would  require  another  standard  that 
might  perhaps  be  fulfilled.  Every  pessimist  is  in  favor  of 
the  objector.  Hartmann,  in  his  Philosophy  of  the  Uncon- 
scious calls  himself  a  pessimist  in  holding  that  the  ideal 
of  positive  happiness  cannot  be  realized  and  an  optimist 
in  believing  that  the  true  goal  of  moral  effort  is  the  ideal 
of  universal  cessation  of  the  will  to  live,  with  its  ultimate 
painlessness  and  the  disappearance  of  the  world.  All 
men  are  exhorted  to  have  "so  deep  a  yearning  for  the 
peace  and  painlessness  of  non-being  (all  the  motives  hith- 
erto making  for  volition  and  existence  being  so  far  seen 
through  in  their  vanity  and  nothingness)  that  that  yearn- 
ing after  the  annihilation  of  volition  and  existence  attains 
authority  as  a  practical  motive."  Then  it  is  conceivable 
that  "the  majority  of  the  peoples  of  the  earth"  will  fin- 
ally make  a  "simultaneous  common  resolve  ...  to  give 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       145 

up  willing"  thus  causing  "the  whole  cosmos  to  disappear 
at  a  stroke  by  withdrawal  of  the  volition  which  alone  gives 
it  existence."  138  Hartmann  was  the  disciple  of  Scho- 
penhauer whose  "blind  Will"  he  united  with  Hegel's  Idea 
in  the  Unconscious  Thought  and  Will.  Schopenhauer 
declared  pain  and  evil  to  be  inseparable  from  the  "will 
to  be."  As  an  incidental  support  of  his  pessimism,  Scho- 
penhauer appealed  to  the  Christian  belief  that  struggles 
and  sorrows  in  this  world  are  only  a  preparation  for  an- 
other, since,  if  that  other  world  is  an  illusion,  as  he  be- 
lieved, the  Christian's  present  life  is  an  acknowledged  fail- 
ure to  realize  its  ideals.  Another  evidence  that  our  ideals 
cannot  be  fulfilled  is  the  belief  that  the  present  age  is  the 
reign  of  anti-Christ  during  which  human  affairs  become 
worse  until  the  coming  of  the  Christ.  The  presupposition 
of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  salvation  is  that  men  are  lost, 
and  by  no  deeds  of  their  own  can  they  be  saved  but  only  by 
God  himself,  which  again  seems  to  indicate  that  the  moral 
ideal  is,  so  far  as  human  efforts  are  concerned,  forever 
unrealizable.  If  so,  men  seem  to  be  freed  from  obliga- 
tion to  attempt  the  impossible,  if,  indeed,  they  are  sin- 
ners at  all. 

Other  objections  to  the  possibility  of  realizing  the  moral 
ideal  are,  for  example,  that  it  is  becoming  greater  and 
more  difficult  to  attain  because  it  develops  in  proportion 
as  man's  achievements  create  the  capacity  to  conceive 
ideals;  that  achievement  and  capacity  to  conceive  do  not 
increase  in  the  same  ratio  but  achievement  lags  behind 
growth  of  the  ideal  which  can,  therefore,  never  be  over- 
taken ;  that,  since  satisfaction  and  happiness  depend  upon 
the  relation  of  achievement,  or  the  actual,  to  the  ideal  self, 
if  the  ideal  increases  so  much  faster  than  achievement, 
it  follows  that  the  virtuous  man  has  no  prospect  except 
increasing  unhappiness  which  finally  becomes  the  misery 
of  conscious  failure  to  realize  the  ideal  self.  The  holy 
men  of  the  Bible  and  of  the  Church  are  overcome  with  a 
sense  of  their  unworthiness,139  Job  excused  himself  and 


146  MORAL    LIFE   AND   RELIGION 

argued  with  his  friends,  but  was  humble  and  silent  before 
God.  It  was  the  same  with  Isaiah  in  the  temple,  and 
with  Daniel.  St.  Paul  called  himself  the  chief  of  sin- 
ners. The  saints  of  the  Church  afford  many  examples 
of  agonized  crying  to  God,  flagellations,  penance,  fasts 
and  vigils,  in  an  effort  to  gain  respite  from  the  sense  of  un- 
wiorthiness  and  guilt.  Every  prayer  contains  a  confes- 
sion of  sin  and  a  plea  for  help,  showing  the  absence 
of  joy  that  is  supposed  to  accompany  the  consciousness  of 
progress  in  the  moral  life;  or,  if  joy  in  progress  ever 
comes,  as  it  may  in  some  degree,  there  is  always  danger 
lest  the  scope  of  the  ideal  be  measurably  forgotten  which 
makes  ability  seem  equal  to  its  fulfillment,  or  the  ideal 
becomes  fixed  through  habit,  ceasing  to  develop,  which  is 
an  approximation  to  moral  death. 

Is  the  moral  ideal's  fulfillment  as  an  experience  con- 
ceivable? Would  not  its  prevailing  sameness  produce 
weariness,  ennui?  Would  not  a  perfect  spirit  suffer  mo- 
notony in  forever  succeeding  in  what  is  undertaken? 
Would  not  a  partial  failure  be  occasionally  welcome? 
Would  not  prevailing  success  result  in  cessation  of  hap- 
piness because  of  the  tendency  of  repetitions  to  issue  in 
inattention  and  unconsciousness  ?  In  our  present  life 
our  keenness  of  attention,  incentive  to  effort,  and  joy,  are 
largely  due  to  our  struggles  against  obstacles  which  par- 
tially triumph  over  us,  never  permitting  us  to  do  any- 
thing perfectly.  From  this  point  of  view,  it  would  seem 
as  though  we  had  little  to  gain  by  becoming  saints  instead 
of  sinners  only  to  incur  the  monotony  of  goodness. 

Moreover,  ethical  theory  not  only  seems  unable  to 
bridge  the  chasm  between  achievement  and  the  ideal  but 
sometimes  distinctly  affirms  that  it  will  remain  forever, 
some  theorists  even  basing  the  hope  of  immortality  upon 
the  ever  present  demand  for  the  fulfillment  of  an  ever 
increasing  ideal.  Accordingly,  the  ceaseless  striving 
towards  a  better  than  any  present  state  is  held  to  be  in- 
herent in  human  existence.  At  once  it  is  suggested  that 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       147 

there  can  never  be  a  permanently  satisfying  experience 
unless  this  striving  for  something  beyond  the  actual  is 
consistent  with  complete  satisfaction,  but  this  cannot  be 
if  the  idea  of  a  satisfaction  on  the  whole  is  aan  idea 
never  realizable  but  forever  striving  to  realize  itself  in 
the  attainment  of  a  greater  command  over  means  to  the 
satisfaction  of  particular  wants."  What,  then,  is  the 
"rest"  for  which  there  is  such  a  longing  ?  14° 

Probably  the  greatest  obstacle  ethical  theory  has  to 
meet  is  the  objection  that  morality  strives  to  realize  an 
essential  contradiction,  for  it  sets  up  as  the  end  of  action 
the  good  which  requires  the  elimination  of  evil  but  the 
good  has  no  meaning  except  in  antithesis  to  evil.  Hence, 
if  the  evil  is  eliminated,  so  is  the  good  and  the  end  oil 
moral  striving  vanishes.  Or,  again,  if  the  universe  is 
already  perfect  with  the  evil  present  in  it,  the  evil  is  just 
what  it  ought  to  be,  since  it  is  the  specific  form  the  per- 
fection of  the  whole  assumes  and,  therefore,  to  remove 
evil,  were  this  possible,  would  be  to  do  away  with  what  is 
essential  to  the  perfection  of  the  universe.  Nor  is  the 
difficulty  overcome  by  calling  evil  an  illusion  and  unreal, 
for,  with  equal  reason,  so  may  be  the  good,  but  both  illu- 
sions are  facts  for  which  some  explanation  is  required. 
If  the  objection  holds,  no  effort  to  do  our  duty  ever  makes 
any  real  difference,  for  reality  is  already  complete  and 
eternally  perfect.  Besides,  morality  seems  to  belong  only 
to  man,  and,  if  the  race  were  to  perish,  the  antithesis 
between  good  and  evil,  which  seems  possible  only  in  hu- 
man experience,  would  vanish  together  with  the  present 
results  of  moral  effort. 

There  are  still  other  objections  to  the  possibility  of  real- 
izing the  moral  ideal,  but  the  examples  given  are  suffi- 
cient to  indicate  the  obstacles  to  ethical  theory. 

60.  To  remove  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  ethical 
theory  growing  out  of  the  relation  of  ideals  to  achieve- 
ment, it  is  necessary  to  show  that  unfulfilled  ideals  are 
consistent  with  moral  attainment  and  with  the  realization 


148  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

of  goodness.  Most  of  the  objections  just  enumerated 
are  based  upon  the  abstraction  of  the  moral  ideal  from 
experience  and  its  substantiation  as  a  factor  in  the  uni- 
verse of  reality  regarded  as  apart  from  any  experience. 
But  these  hypotheses  are  psychologically  and  logically 
untenable. 

The  antithesis  between  the  actual  and  ideal  often  as- 
sumes that  the  ideal  is  sufficiently  real  to  rival  the  actual 
self  much  to  its  disparagement.  But  this  antithesis  is 
between  two  thoughts  of  the  same  thinker  who,  with 
different  feelings  for  each,  compares  his  conception  of  the 
actual  with  that  of  the  ideal  self  both  being  the  product 
of  his  reflection  upon  what  he  now  is  as  the  result  of  an 
infinite  series  of  psycho-physical  antecedents  in  his  own 
history  and  that  of  the  race,  and  upon  his  relation  to  his 
fellows.  But,  instead  of  being  filled  with  hopelessness 
before  the  majesty  of  his  ideal  self,  however  much  it  may 
be  the  product  of  the  deeper  spirit  of  humanity  in  its 
onward  movement,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  actual  has 
the  advantage  over  the  ideal  self.  The  very  contrast  be- 
tween the  two  conceptions  shows  that  the  actual  self  is 
a  well-known  achievement  of  the  temporal  order  through 
which  the  subject  has  lived,  something  definite  and  felt, 
and,  though  still  imperfect,  what  the  subject  is  here  and 
now  has  the  advantage  over  that  vaguely  conceived  ideal 
self  towards  which  the  subject  has  such  peculiar  feelings 
of  approval,  but  which  has  no  existence  except  as  a  con- 
ception. What  this  ideal  self  really  means  cannot  be 
known  till  it  is  translated  into  definite  experience.  Our 
ideals  are,  therefore,  only  schematic,  or,  as  Dewey  says, 
they  are  like  the  stars,  we  steer  by  them,  not  to  them. 
Our  ideal  self  is  thus  only  a  working  hypothesis  of  life, 
tentatively  held,  changing  as  we  change,  throwing  light 
upon  the  way  to  better  achievement  which  is  never  fully 
known  except  as  an  experience  in  the  moment  of  achieve- 
ment. The  ideal  moral  self  is,  therefore,  psychologically 
only  our  thought  of  what  our  individuality  means  which 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       149 

gradually  becomes  clearer  and  more  definite  in  our  grow- 
ing experience.  Why  should  we  take  our  failure  to  ful- 
fill our  ideal  of  perfect  moral  goodness  more  seriously 
than  our  failure  to  possess  all  knowledge  which  is  cer- 
tainly a  vague  ideal  that  remains  unfulfilled  without 
lessening  the  worth  of  the  knowledge  we  do  have  ?  Like- 
wise our  moral  deficiencies  should  not  be  permitted  to 
destroy  the  worth  of  our  moral  achievements. 

The  psychological  nature  of  the  actual  and  the  ideal  self 
makes  it  unnecessary  to  hold  that  the  ideal,  objectified 
by  our  spatializing  thought  as  a  goal  towards  which  we 
run  our  moral  race,  can  never  be  reached.  Instead,  we 
bear  the  ideal  as  a  conception  with  us  to  cast  light  upon 
the  way  forward,  it  may  be,  only  a  little  distance.  NOT 
are  we  to  become  increasingly  miserable  with  the  develop- 
ment of  our  ideals,  since  achievement  grows  more  slowly, 
for  there  is  vast  difference  between  a  mere  ideal  and  an 
achievement,  though  an  ideal  is  an  achievement  of  another 
kind  best  understood  as  the  beginning  of  what  might  be 
a  full  deed  of  will.  There  is  cheer  in  enlarging  ideals, 
for  they  mean  brighter  light  and  plainer  path  before  us. 
We  may  also  have  joy  in  our  achieved  selfhood  and  a 
happy  anticipation  of  a  larger  and  richer  experience  to 
be  gained  through  further  effort  to  fulfill  our  ideals. 
The  fact  that  every  achievement  increases  the  capacity 
to  conceive  the  ideal  of  what  we  ought  to  be,  which  con- 
sequently grows  faster  than  achievement,  should  even 
cause  joy,  for  it  now  means  more  light  the  farther  we  go. 
Besides,  a  static  condition  even  of  goodness  with  its  threat- 
ened monotony,  inattention  and  even  unconsciousness,  is 
now  seen  to  be  impossible.  Hence  to  say  that  we  must 
bring  the  actual  and  the  ideal  into  an  identity  is  to  regard 
both  as  some  sort  of  existences  that  may  be  fused  into  one, 
whereas  they  are  two  conceptions  one  of  which  has  a 
corresponding  actuality  and  the  other  has  not.  We  may 
then  admit  that  unrealized  ideals  are  consistent  with  val- 
uable moral  achievement  and  happy  experience  of  the 


150  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

good,  for  it  is  now  evident  that  ideals  mean  we  shall 
never  in  our  "upspringing  life,"  to  borrow  a  term  from 
Bergson,  cease  to  need  the  light  of  our  ideals  whose  full 
meaning  we  are  to  know  only  as  we  translate  them  into 
experience.  These  psychological  considerations  should 
have  saved  the  moral  and  religious  heroes  of  the  past 
from  distress  and  given  them  a  reasonable  joy  in  their 
moral  and  spiritual  attainment.  They  also  have  much 
importance  for  the  Christian  doctrine  of  salvation  which 
often  presupposes  an  objective  remote  ideal  as  goal  that 
human  effort  cannot  reach.  They  also  eliminate  the 
metaphysical  difficulties  concerning  the  reality  and  per- 
fection of  the  universe  as  involving  both  good  and  evil, 
for  now  the  problem  is  taken  over  into  experience  itself 
within  which  reality  is  to  be  found.  It  will  be  the  pur- 
pose of  the  concluding  chapter  to  show  how  good  and  evil 
are  related  to  this  empirically  conceived  reality  in  morals 
and  religion. 

61.  The  logical  relation  of  the  universal  to  the  particu- 
lar and  the  individual  also  seems  to  be  of  use  in  over- 
coming the  objections  to  morality  on  the  ground  that  the 
ideal  self  is  unrealizable  which  would,  it  is  said,  remove 
the  obligation.  Our  ideal  self  may  be  treated  as  the  uni- 
versal which  is  particularized  in  the  individual  acts  we 
do,  or  as  the  genus  which  is  fully  expressed  in  the  species 
whose  sum  equals  the  genus,  or,  as  Aristotle's  idea  or 
form,  energizing  in  individuals  which  would  mean  that 
every  action  we  do  is  the  energizing  of  our  ideal  perfectly 
fulfilling  its  requirements  in  that  particular.  Since 
logical  categories  are  now  best  regarded  as  functional  or 
habitual  modes  of  mental  behavior,  our  ideal  is  a  rule  of 
action,  a  point  of  view,  applicable  to  varying  moral  situ- 
ations but  the  acts  done  are  the  individual  forms  assumed 
by  the  ideal  at  a  given  time  and  place,  and  all  of  them  are 
required  to  set  forth  the  ideal  by  which  our  activity  is 
determined. 

It  is  evident  that  our  ideal  in  its  universal  character 


SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICAL  THEORY       151 

is,  in  a  sense,  larger  than  any  single  act  in  which  we  give 
it  expression  and  by  which  it  cannot  be  exhausted. 
Hence  the  ideal  always  appears  vaster  than  anything  we 
may  be  able  to  do  at  a  given  time  and  place ;  nevertheless, 
our  ideal  of  goodness  may  be  regarded  as  completely 
realizing  itself  in  the  series  of  our  acts  without  which 
as  particulars  the  ideal  as  universal  would  be  impossi- 
ble. In  this  sense,  our  ends  continuously  define  them- 
selves. 

This  view  of  the  moral  ideal  seems  to  accord  with  our 
deepest  experiences.  In  reflecting  upon  our  own  individ- 
uality, we  feel  that  our  varied  activities  must  have  a 
totality  of  meaning,  or  purpose,  in  whose  fulfillment  our 
individuality  consists.  This  conception  of  the  reality  of 
the  self  is  confirmed  by  many  psychological,  logical,  and 
ethical  considerations,  and  appeal  might  be  made  to  phil- 
osophy and  religion  in  its  support.  Making  a  personal 
application  of  these  truths,  there  are  comfort  and  inspira- 
tion in  reflecting  that  no  other  has  just  the  thing  to  do  in 
the  world  that  I  have.  This  one  definite  end,  which  I 
may,  indeed,  only  vaguely  conceive,  cannot  be  completely 
expressed  in  any  single  deed,  although  the  individual  act 
is  the  particular  form  that  the  end  or  purpose  of  my  life 
assumes  in  the  given  circumstances.  My  ideal  may, 
however,  find  its  full  embodiment  in  the  total  series  of 
my  experiences  and  my  constant  task  as  well  as  my 
inspiration  is  to  bring  into  the  light  of  conscious  definite 
experience  what  my  own  selfhood  means,  indeed  my  pro- 
gressive experience  becomes  an  adventure  in  self-discov- 
ery— the  full  self  being  known  only  to  the  Infinite.  My 
real  selfhood  is,  then,  more  than  I  am  or  can  be  at  any 
time,  for  it  is  the  unity  of  the  one  definite  end  in  the 
manifold  of  experiences.  In  the  deed  of  any  moment,  I 
not  only  am  conscious  of  what  I  do  but  there  is  a  more 
or  less  clear  apprehension,  or  forecasting  idea,  of  a  lar- 
ger selfhood — a  "something  more" — evoking  feelings  of 
fear,  reverence  and  approval  whose  unity  is  the  voice  of 


152  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGIO1T 

conscience,  demanding  obedience,  and  which  is  the  source 
of  that  peculiar  feeling  of  never  being  able  adequately 
to  realize  the  ideal. 

Expressing  the  above  principle  in  another  way,  the 
self  may  be  viewed  sub  specie  ceternitatis,  but,  at  any 
moment  of  the  temporal  series,  I  am  a  partial  self  and 
shall  always  be  seeking  my  larger  ideal  self  of  which  I 
am  somehow  conscious  as  being  what  I  really  am  and 
which  I  may  hope  will  be  more  fully  revealed.  If  I 
think  of  myself  as  regarded  by  a  Mind  that  sees 
the  series  of  my  experiences  as  a  whole,  that  is  my  full 
reality  of  which  I  have  only  vague  intimations  in  the 
form  of  aspirations  which  rise  so  unaccountably  within 
me  and  which  my  ideals  in  a  measure  embody.  Religion 
now  enters  to  supplement  these  aspirations  with  the  belief 
that  my  true  reality  and  value  are  found  only  in  the 
divine  experience.  This  religious  faith  is  to  many  a  joy 
and  an  inspiration.  We  rejoice  to  believe  that  we  are 
more  than  the  narrow  span  of  our  consciousness  with  its 
memory  and  anticipations  enables  us  to  perceive.  We 
rejoice  that  our  developing  life  will  permit  us  to  know 
ever  more  of  our  true  selfhood  than  we  do,  but  the  very- 
fact  that  our  growing  experience  of  what  we  are  shall 
never  cease  to  have  its  contrast  between  our  actual  and  our 
ideal  self  makes  it  possible  to  be  comforted  by  the  belief 
that  we  are  far  more  in  the  thought  and  purpose  of  the 
divine  Mind  than  we  apprehend.  Thus  the  moral  con- 
sciousness takes  refuge  in  religious  faith  and  philosophi- 
cal thought,  whose  function  in  the  moral  life  it  is  the 
purpose  of  the  remainder  of  this  book  to  interpret. 


PART  II 
THE  RELIGIOUS  CONSCIOUSNESS 

CHAPTER  IX 
MORALITY  AND  RELIGION 

62.  The  preceding  chapters  have  treated  the  psycho- 
logical nature  of  morality.  Religious  conceptions  have 
not  been  entirely  avoided  in  this  analysis.  The  religious 
consciousness  is  now  to  he  studied  in  order  to  determine 
the  psychological  origin  and  development  of  religion,  and 
its  essential  and  practical  relation  to  morality. 

The  factors  constituting  the  religious  consciousness 
are  the  subject  of  controversy.  Many  place  much  em- 
phasis upon  the  psychological  method  and  the  collection 
of  data  to  be  analyzed  in  order  to  construct  a  definition 
of  religion.  While  it  is  important  to  do  this,  the  selection 
of  data  is  itself  exposed  to  the  objection  that  it  already 
assumes  a  conception  of  what  religion  is,  for  we  have 
to  decide  when  one  is  religious  in  order,  on  the  behavior- 
ist's  theory  of  the  analysis  of  mental  states,  to  assemble 
and  classify  acts  as  religious. 

The  difficulty  of  defining  religion  with  a  specific  con- 
tent is  shown  by  the  attempt  to  express  the  nature  of 
religion  as  "belief  in  gods/7  as  a  "feeling  of  absolute 
dependence,"  an  "attitude'7  towards  experience  as  a 
whole,  a  "function"  of  adjustment  to  a  broadly  conceived 
environment,  a  "tendency"  to  completion  expressing 
itself  in  various  objective  forms.  Such  definitions  of 
religion  are  not  informing,  though,  of  course,  this  "es- 
sence" of  religion,  having  no  restrictive  content,  admits 
of  development  in  a  variety  of  religions.  A  good  exam- 

153 


154  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

pie  of  these  definitions  is  Coe's  description  of  religion  as: 

"Any  reaction  may  be  considered  religious  to  the  ex- 
tent that  it  seeks  'life'  in  the  sense  of  completion,  unifi- 
cation, and  conservation  of  values — any  value  whatever. 
Religion  does  not  introduce  any  new  value;  it  is  an 
operation  upon  or  within  all  our  appreciations.  If  we 
are  to  speak  of  religious  value  at  all,  we  should  think  of 
it  as  the  value  of  values,  that  is,  the  value  of  life  organ- 
izing and  completing  itself,  or  seeking  a  destiny,  as 
against  the  discrete  values  of  impulsive  and  unreflective 
existence."  141 

But  every  "reaction,"  I  think,  seeks  life  in  its  com- 
pleteness, even  the  reflex  and  instinctive,  for  every  reac- 
tion expresses  the  fundamental  conation  or  tendency  to 
preserve  and  promote  the  well-being  of  the  psycho-physi- 
cal organism.  Cognition  especially  has  an  organizing 
function  as  the  mind  obeys  its  "logical  rule  telling  us  to 
get  as  near  to  completeness  as  we  possibly  can  in  the 
ascent  to  ever  higher  conditions,  and  so  to  bring  our 
knowledge  to  the  highest  unity  of  which  our  reason  is 
capable."  142  But  cognition  itself  is  a  form  of  cona- 
tion.143 The  same  is  true  of  the  aesthetic  consciousness; 
it  strives  for  unity  of  parts  in  the  whole,  and  Plato  made 
much  of  gymnastics  and  music  to  bring  the  inner  life  into 
that  harmonious  order  in  which  justice  consists.  Be- 
sides, what  moral  value  can  be  isolated  from  the  whole  of 
values  ? — f  or  the  moral  as  well  as  the  religious  is  "the 
value  of  life  organizing  and  completing  itself,  or  seeking 
a  destiny,  as  against  the  discrete  values  of  impulsive  or 
unreflective  existence."  By  the  way,  is  there  "a  value  of 
impulsive  or  unreflective  existence?"  I  had  supposed 
values  implied  an  ideational  discriminative  process; 
Wright  even  says  there  must  be  comparison  (sec.  20). 

TMs  failure  to  distinguish  religion  from  other  aspects 
of  experience  is  finally  acknowledged  by  Coe  in  the  state- 
ment: 


MOEALITY   AND    RELIGION  155 

"If  the  question  be  asked,  wherein,  then,  religious 
value  is  distinct  from  ethical  value,  the  answer  is  that 
it  is  not  distinct  from  etihical  or  any  other  value.  When 
ethical  value  attempts  its  ideal  completion  in  union  with 
all  other  values  similarly  ideal  and  complete,  what  we 
have  is  religion  in  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  here 
used.  The  sphere  of  religion,  as  of  ethics,  is  individ- 
ual and  social  life.  In  this  life  religion  refers  to  the 
same  persons,  the  same  purposes,  the  same  conditioning 
facts  as  ethics.  In  most  ethical  thinking,  however,  a 
difference  is  recognized.  For  ethics  commonly  limits  its 
attention  to  certain  values  only,  whereas  religion  is  in- 
terested in  all  values,  in  the  whole  meaning  of  life."  144 

It  is  sufficient  to  reply  to  this  view  of  religion  that  no 
fact  or  value  is  anything  apart  from  the  whole  meaning 
of  life  which  it  implies.  How,  then,  has  Co©  distin- 
guished religion  from  other  features  of  consciousness? 
To  say  that  "ethics  commonly  limits  its  attention  to  cer- 
tain values  only"  does  not  make  it  true  that  moral  values 
are  not  related  to  "the  whole  meaning  of  life."  Indeed, 
it  is  a  moral  obligation  to  view  alternatives,  between 
which  a  choice  after  deliberation  is  to  be  made,  in  all 
their  relations  which  requires  the  moral  consciousness  to 
relate  its  choice  to  the  whole  of  reality.  What  then  is  left 
for  religion  to  do  or  be  that  the  moral  consciousness  does 
not  possess? 

63.  It  is  essential  to  determine  whether  moral  distinc- 
tions inhere  in  the  nature  of  religion.  If  we  grant  that 
morality  and  religion  can  exist  separately,  it  should  be 
possible  to  assign  religion  either  to  a  pre-moral  state  or  to 
a  sphere  that  transcends"  moral  distinctions.  But,  if 
moral  distinctions  inhere  in  the  nature  of  religion,  there 
seems  to  be  no  essential  difference  between  morality  and 
religion  adequately  conceived,  and,  if  so,  they  probably  be- 
gin and  develop  together  both  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
race.  Historical  investigation  seems  to  confirm  this  hy- 


MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

pothesis.  When  we  follow  "the  clue  of  the  historical 
thread,  we  are  not  led  into  the  presence  of  human  beings 
that  are  either  religious  by  primitive  revelation  or  work- 
ing hard  at  its  formation  by  dint  of  their  own  observa- 
tion and  reflections,  as  a  new  and  untried  product;  the 
rather  do  we  come  face  to  face  with  beings  who  are  al- 
ready for  an  indefinite  time  religious.  In  no  case  does 
the  tradition,  much  less  the  historically  trustworthy 
record,  reach  back  to  the  time  when  religion  was  not  in 
existence,  but  just  began  to  be."  145  If  this  be  so,  King's 
appeal  to  a  "primitive  man"  who,  according  to  Waitz,  is 
a  "pure  fiction  however  convenient  a  fiction  he  may  be"— 
to  "a  time  in  the  history  of  the  race  when  a  definite  re- 
ligious attitude  did  not  exist,"  146  verges  on  mere  specula- 
tion. 

64.  Since  -man  is  a  social  being,  his  moral  and  reli- 
gious history  is  both  individual  and  social  in  its  origin 
and  growth.  The  nervous  system,  instincts,  emotions, 
cognitions  and  volitions  act  and  interact  in  this  develop- 
ment. At  first,  subject  to  fear  of  strange  forces  and  events, 
man's  curiosity  and  wonder  impel  him  to  form  some  con- 
ception of  the  causes  of  these  phenomena  in  order  that  he 
may  adjust  himself  to  these  agencies.  Ignorant  of  me- 
chanical causation  and  familiar  only  with  his  own  volun- 
tary action  following  upon  certain  feelings,  emotions  and 
desires,  events  not  caused  by  himself  are  conceived  as 
effects  of  personal  agencies  whom  he  fears  and  wonders  at 
and  before  whom  he  humbles  himself  striving  to  know 
their  will  that  he  may  obey.  When  such  ideas  are  achieved 
and  adopted  by  a  community,  they  become  disciplinary 
forces.  Any  calamity  to  the  individual  or  to  the  commun- 
ity would  be  attributed  to  some  offence  of  these  powers  and 
this  offence  would  be  apt  to  be  understood  as  whatever 
was  unusual  and  not  customary.  Hence  the  customs 
would  tend  to  be  enforced  with  greater  severity.  Besides, 
unusual  acts  followed  by  success  or  disaster  would, 
through  association  of  ideas,  establish  new  customary  ob- 


.!^1 
X 

MORALITY   AND    RELIGION  157 

servances  or  prohibitions.  Thus  the  religious  veneration 
of  higher  powers  tends  to  conserve  "Ihe  customs  and  en- 
force obedience  to  social  regulations  in  whose  observance 
morality  largely  consists. 

It  follows  from  the  above  that  morality  and  religion 
are  inseparable  in  their  origin  and  growth. 

"Although  many  of  the  modes  of  conduct  prescribed 
by  primitive  and  savage  custom  and  enforced  by  super- 
natural sanctions  are  not  such  as  we  regard  as  moral, 
and  are  in  many  cases  even  detrimental  to  the  simple 
societies  in  which  such  customs  obtain,  and  so  cannot 
}>e  justified  by  any  utilitarian  principle,  yet  we  must 
class  the  observance  of  such  custom  as  moral  conduct. 
For  the__  essence  of  moral  conduct  is  the  performance 
of  social  duty,  the  duty  prescribed  by  spciety,  as  op- 
posed to  the  mere  following  of  the  promptings  of  ego- 
istic impulses.  If  we  define  moral  conduct  in  this  broad 
sense  then,  no  matter  how  grotesque  and,  from  our 
point  of  view,  how  immoral  the  prescribed  codes  of 
conduct  of  other  societies  may  appear  to  be,  we  must 
admit  conformity  to  the  code  to  be  moral  conduct ;  and 
we  must  admit  that  religion  from  its  first  crude  begin- 
nings was  bound  up  with  morality  .  .  .  and  that  the 
two  things,  morality  and  religion,  were  not  at  first  sepa- 
rate and  later  fused  together ;  but  that  they  were  always 
intimately  related,  and  have  reciprocally  acted  and  re- 
acted upon  one  another  throughout  the  course  of  their 
evolution.  We  must  recognize  also  that  a  firm  and 
harmonious  relation  between  them  has  been  in  every 
age  a  main  condition  of  the  stability  of  societies. "  147 

\jivJJL 

Religion,  then,  must  take  cognizance  of  moral  dis- 
tinctions, for  the  powers  that  sanctify  the  social  customs 
and  codes  will  be  regarded  as  jealously  guarding  the  laws 
from  infringement.  These  powers  are  quick  to  know  the 
difference  between  right  and  wrong,  good  and  evil. 
Kant  held  that  morality  becomes  religion  when  the  moral 


158  MORAL,    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

laws  are  identified  with  tlie  commands  of  the  supreme 
Law-giver,  the  implication  being  that  full  obedience  to 
the  moral  law  requires  this  broader  relationship.  It  is 
a  case  of  the  "ideality  of  the  finite."  It  belongs,  then, 
to  the  moral  will  to  relate  its  choices  to  the  whole  of  re- 
ality. This  is,  perhaps,  the  meaning  ofcArjiaUils_jaying 
that  religion  is  "morality  touched  with  emotion"  in  the 
sense  of  what  might  be  called  a  cosmic  emotion.  But 
Bradley  and  others  seem  to  sacrifice  moral  distinctions 
in  relegating  religion  to  a  sphere  in  which  there  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  unity  of  the  transient  aspects  of  "appear- 
ance" unattainable  by  morality  with  its  antithesis  of  good 
and  evil.148  To  both  the  elimination  of  religion,  and 
to  its  assignment  to  a  sphere  beyond  the  moral,  it  seems 
enough  to  reply  that  the  moral  does,  indeed,  become 
the  religious  consciousness  and,  instead  of  doing  away 
with  religion  or  separating  it  from  morality,  morality 
needs  to  complete  itself  in  religion  and  then  morality  and 
religion  are  one.  Just  as  in  the  transition  from  sensible 
experience  to  perception,  and  from  perception  to  under- 
standing, there  is  a  development  in  which  the  implicit  be- 
comes explicit, 

"by  an  act  of  evolution,  or  creative  synthesis  as  it  has 
been  called  .  .  .  so  it  is  in  the  transition  from  morality 
to  religion.  Religion  presupposes  morality,  and  moral- 
ity contains  religion  implicitly ;  but  when  the  transi- 
tion has  been  made  to  religion,  morality  has  no  longer 
a  separate  and  independent  existence,  but  is  trans- 
cended and  preserved."  149 

This  final  identity  of  morality  and  religion  implies  that 
they  have  throughout  the  series  of  their  manifestations 
posited  each  other,  while  their  apparent  separation  at 
an}'  time  is  due  to  the  dominance  of  some  factor  in  the 
complex  unity  of  the  moral  and  religious  nature  over 
others, 

65.     There  is  also  a  tendency  to  develop  the  concep- 


MOKALITY    AND    KELIGION  159 

tion  of  the  objects  feared  and  revered  and  to  elevate  one 
of  these  to  supremacy  over  others  as  having  to  do  pre- 
eminently with  human  welfare.  But  development  pre- 
supposes some  end  by  which  the  order  of  development  may 
be  construed.  If  we  assume  that  the  ideal  of  Perfect  Eth- 
ical Spirit  is  the  goal,  the  process  might  be  conceived  ac- 
cording to  the  growth  of  the  conception  of  personality. 
Only  slowly  did  man  become  conscious  of  himself  as  ethical 
person.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  the  process  since  it 
has  often  been  treated  by  others.  In  his  earliest  stages, 
man  identified  himself  closely  with  the  objects  amidst 
which  he  lived.  This  stage  has  been  variously  described  as 
animism,  or,  perhaps,  spiritism,  to  signify  that  man  re- 
garded all  things  as  having  life  like  his  own.  There 
was  what  Reville  called  "great-nature  worship"  as  of 
the  sun,  the  wind,  the  rain,  that  have  so  much  to  do  with 
comfort  and  well-being.  "Minor-nature-worship"  had, 
for  the  same  reason,  as  its  objects,  rivers,  springs,  trees, 
lower  animals,  as  such;  for  example,  the  Nile  and  the 
Ganges  were  themselves  sacred,  but  not  because  of  an  in- 
dwelling spirit.150 

Gradually  this  vague  unreflecting  spiritism  gave  place 
to  anthropomorphic  polytheism  in  which  the  higher 
powers  are  more  definitely  conceived  after  analogy  with 
the  social  ethical  personality.  A  selective  tendency  pre- 
vails leading,  under  the  influence  of  social  and  ethical 
ideas  and  practices,  to  an  enriched  and  purified  conception 
of  the  supreme  Being.  The  logical  culmination  of  this 
process  is  the  idea  of  the  Divine  Personality.  Then  the 
culture  of  relations  with  this  supreme  Being  becomes  of 
much  importance  to  human  welfare.151 

66.  If  now  we  turn  to  the  vexed  question  concern- 
ing the  "essence"  of  religion,  what  has  just  been  said 
of  its  origin  and  development  suggests  that  everywhere  re- 
ligion is  a  form  of  the  conative  aspect  of  human  existence, 
a  striving  persistence  of  the  life-process  which  posits  its 
continuation  and  fulfillment.  This  positing  is  both  cog- 


160  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

nitive,  affective,  and  volitional.  Instincts  and  emotions 
are  important.  Fear,  concerning  the  unusual,  the  creat- 
ive imagination  trying  to  satisfy  this  curiosity,  the  rev- 
erence for  existence  to  which  the  self  is  subjected,  a  wait- 
ing response  to  our  limitations — even  an  expectancy — all 
unite  in  a  great  affirmation  of  life.  Rapidly  succeeding 
events  are  full  of  interest  but  create  in  us  who  watch  them 
pass  a  feeling  that  we  are  just  about  to  do  or  experience 
something  worth  while  which  will  abide,  but  there  comes 
sooner  or  later  the  consciousness  that  after  all  what  we 
have  done  or  can  do  or  know  is  insignificant.  If  this  were 
all,  life  would  be  a  strange  puzzle — the  sense  of  worth 
would  be  unfulfilled.  May  we  not  take  the  negation  of  sat- 
isfaction as  implying  the  affirmation  of  full  satisfaction? 
Is  not  religion  evoked  in  us  through  the  sense  of  the  ab- 
sence of  value  in  so  much  of  what  we  experience  which  is  at 
least  significant  of  the  all-satisfying,  the  adequately  val- 
uable which  not  only  ought  to  be,  but  finally  is  ?  Just  as 
"the  continuous  affirmative  judgment  of  the  waking  con- 
sciousness'7 152  is  inseparable  from  our  immediate  aware- 
ness of  reality,  so  the  religious  consciousness  affirms  the 
contradictory  of  its  dissatisfactions  which  means  that  the 
implied  reality  must  contain  the  fullness  of  satisfaction 
and  completeness,  else  our  present  experience  is  unintel- 
ligible. !NTot  that  this  affirmation  is  consciously  logical  or 
solely  cognitive.  It  is  rather  the  life-assertion  of  man's 
entire  being.  This,  I  think,  may  be  the  meaning  of 
Hoffding's  axiom  of  religion  as  the  "conservation  of 
value."  153  The  same  thought  is  evidently  in  Coe's  view 
that  "a  value  is  anything  experienced  or  thought  of  as 
satisfying,  or  the  contrary,"  while  religion  is  the  "value 
of  values,"  the  "value  of  life  organizing  and  completing 
itself  or  seeking  a  destiny" — "an  immanent  critique 
(within  one's  particular  valuations)  which  is  also  a  move- 
ment towards  completeness,  unity,  and  permanence  of  the 
value-experience  as  a  whole."  154  I,  however,  believe  re- 


MORALITY   AND   RELIGION  161 

ligion  is  the  assertion  of  the  whole  man  as  rational  in- 
clusive of  feeling  and  will — a  view  suggesting  that  of 
Hegel  in  the  Logic  (sec.  24.  P.  47)  and  in  the  "Phenom- 
enology of  Spirit.'7  At  any  rate,  I  do  not  intend  to  re- 
duce religion  to  mere  feelings  of  value,  on  the  one  hand, 
or  to  a  blind  persistence  of  will  to  live,  on  the  other. 

Inevitably  this  great  affirmation  implicit  in  religion 
means  that  being  is  ultimately  satisfying  even  to  our- 
selves. It  should  be  noted  that  both  the  negations  and  the 
affirmations  are  within  our  experience  and  imply  that 
reality  itself  is  a  certain  ordering  of  experience  in  which 
we  find  satisfaction.  This  seems  to  indicate  that  our  ex- 
perience in  its  totality  must  be  the  possessor  of  these  sat- 
isfactions that  are  affirmed  which  makes  our  self-hood 
much  larger  than  at  any  moment  it  appears.  What  is 
religion,  then,  but  a  turning  from  present  negations  to 
affirmations  implicit  in  the  totality  of  experience  \ 
Surely,  if  there  are  absolute  values  for  us.  they  must  be 
found  somewhere  in  the  totality  of  our  experiences  as 
self-conscious  persons,  that  is,  in  our  life  as  a  whole,  if 
you  please,  in  our  complete  timeless  whole.  Another  im- 
plication seems  to  be  that  our  life  will  always  have  its 
negatives  and  positives  in  the  unity  of  experience  and  yet 
we  shall  always  identify  ourselves  with  present  and  an- 
ticipated satisfactions  as  inseparable  from  our  reality. 
If  it  be  asked  why  we  identify  ourselves  with  the  posi- 
tives rather  than  the  negatives,  in  other  words,  why  reli- 
gion is  so  confident  that  our  reality  as  selves  contains  in 
its  completeness  our  full  satisfaction,  there  seem  to  be 
only  empirical  criteria  to  which  appeal  may  be  made,  chief 
of  which  is  the  ceaseless  conative  impulse  to  life  which  ap- 
propriates whatever  modes  of  thinking,  feeling  and  acting 
have  the  most  satisfying  consequences.  Nor  are  we  able 
to  give  further  explanation  any  more  than  we  can  .show 
why  certain  vibrations  are  responded  to  with  sensations  of 
light  or  sound,  or  why  pleasurable  feelings  are  on  the 


162  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

whole  safer  guides  in  action  than  unpleasurable.  Prob- 
ably each  is  the  issue  of  the  age-long  development  which 
culminated  in  human  life. 

It  has  been  already  implied  that  the  assurance  of  the 
ultimately  satisfying  is  logically  prior  to  the  experience 
of  dissatisfactions.  There  could  be  no  striving  for  pres- 
ervation and  fulfillment  of  life  without  an  implicit  posit- 
ing of  its  possibility  and  final  actuality.  jDn  other  words^ 
before  one  knows  dissatisfactions  there  is  implied  a  prior 
attitude  towards  satisfaction.  One  has  to  be  driven  out 
of  satisfactions  to  be  aware  of  their  negations.  The  nurs- 
ing child  forcibly  interrupted  becomes  vividly  conscious 
of  a  posited  source  of  satisfaction  and  the  conative  im- 
pulse becomes  a  conscious  striving.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
quite  true  to  say,  as  some  do,  that  through  our  sense  of 
weakness  and  limitation,  we  fear,  and  appeal  to  some  power 
to  supplement  our  efforts  which  grows  in  mysterious  abil- 
ity to  satisfy  our  needs,  until  our  creative  conception  cul- 
minates in  the  idea  of  the  divine  Person  whom  we  may 
love  and  trust.  The  particular  form  of  religion  at  a 
given  level  would  be  determined  by  the  most  pressing 
needs  and  the  ability  to  conceive  their  satisfaction  which 
accompanies  the  growth  towards  full  self-conscious  per- 
sonality in  the  civilized  state.  As  man  becomes  more 
able  to  provide  for  his  physical  Well-being,  he  gains  in 
power  to  appreciate  the  more  spiritual  and  remote  ends, 
which  suggests  a  more  or  less  definite  order  in  the  mani- 
festations ^>f  the  religious  impulse  to  life.  To  determine 
this  order,  even  if  I  were  able,  would  require  a  review  of 
the  religious  history  of  mankind,  which  is  rendered  diffi- 
cult partly  because  man's  early  existence  is  so  imperfectly 
known,  and  partly  because  of  the  complexity  of  human  ex- 
istence. Nor  does  the  stream  seem  to  flow  steadily  for- 
ward. There  are  many  stagnant  pools  and  barren  wastes, 
even  a  kind  of  devolution  with  signs  of  degradation  from 
a  higher  religious  state. 

This  view  of  religion  is,  perhaps,  more  faithful  to  our 


MORALITY   AND    RELIGIOU  163 

deepest  experiences  than  some  other  conceptions  of  its  es- 
sential significance;  for  example,  religion,  it  is  said,  con- 
sists in  "an  innate  se^^__£)f_iLe--Jnfiaite*"  155  But  this, 
I  think,  Ts  onl^a  form  of  the  ever  present  conative  im- 
pulse to  life  positing  its  own  fulfillment  and  ultimate  sat- 
isfaction which  is  for  us  the  meaning  of  religion  but  which 
cannot  be  conceived  in  its  fullness.  "Not  God,  but  life," 
says  Leuba,156  "more  life,  a  larger,  richer,  more  satis- 
fying life,  is  in  the  last  analysis  the  end  of  religion. 
The  love  of  life,  at  any  and  every  level  of  development,  is 
the  religious  impulse"  which  objectifies  itself  in  relation  to 
variously  conceived  objects  of  worship.  Likewise  James 
finds  in  the  varieties  of  religious  experience  two  ele- 
ments, first,  an  uneasiness,  a  sense  that  there  is  something 
wrong  about  us  as  we  are  by  nature,  and,  secondly,  "a 
sense  that  we  are  saved  from  the  wrongness  by  making 
proper  connection  with  the  higher  powers."  The 
individual  so  far  as  he  suffers  from  his  wrongness 
and  criticizes  it  is  to  that  extent  consciously  beyond 
it,  and  in  at  least  possible  touch  with  something 
higher,  if  anything  higher  exists.  But  why  should  he 
identify  himself  with  the  higher?  At  first,  the  reason 
is  not  clear  but  one  "becomes  conscious  that  this  higher 
part  is  conterminous  and  continuous  with  a  more  of  the 
same  quality,  which  is  operative  in  the  universe  outside 
of  him,  and  which  he  can  keep  in  working  touch  with,  and 
in  a  fashion  get  on  board  of  and  save  himself  when  all 
his  lower  being  has  gone  to  pieces  in  the  wreck."'1'57 
This,  however,  only  expresses  the  principle  already  set 
forth  that  religion  rests  upon  the  fundamental  impulse  to 
life  which  posits  its  ultimate  fulfillment  and  satisfaction. 
67.  An  appreciation  of  the  interpenetration  of  psychio 
states  in  the  fullness  of  human  life  takes  away  the  desire 
to  parcel  out  the  religious  experiences  of  the  race  into 
sharply  distinguishable  groups  to  be  designated  as  reli- 
gious. As  Ladd  well  says,  there  is  a  sense  in  which 
"every  kind  of  religion  belongs  to  all  kinds.  Strict  clas- 


164  MOBAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

sification  becomes  impossible."  158  The  same  interpene- 
tration  and  complexity  of  psychic  states  makes  it  impos- 
sible for  morality  and  religion  to  be  separate  experiences. 
In  showing  their  final  identity,  I  have  emphasized  the  fact 
that  both  are  aspects  of  the  same  impulse  to  life,  its  fulfill- 
ment and  satisfaction  and  to  this  end  the  entire  self  both 
in  morality  and  religion,  is  committed.  The  end  of  moral 
effort  is  some  form  of  self-realization  in  social  relations. 
Duties  are  owed  to  one's  self  and  neighbor,  but  the  love 
of  self,  arid  of  neighbor,  are  finally  identical  because  of 
their  social  unity.  The  end  of  religion  is  to  love  God 
with  heart,  mind  and  soul  and  one's  neighbor  as  one's 
self.  Such  is  the  utterance  of  the  highest  religious  con- 
sciousness. One  member  of  this  trinity  of  self,  other 
selves  and  God  may,  as  the  object  of  a  given  act,  be  ascend- 
ant over  the  others  which  can  never  be  entirely  absent. 
Perhaps  the  problem  of  life  consists  in  establishing  a 
proper  balance  in  the  relations  of  self,  other  selves  and 
God  as  the  end  of  every  act  and  of  the  total  expression  of 
the  impulse  to  life.  Neither  morality  nor  religion  is 
merely  an  attitude  in  the  sense  of  being  solely  a  subjective 
feature  of  consciousness,  for  there  is  always  a  variously 
conceived  objective. 

Practically,  in  the  common  usage  of  the  term,  religion 
designates  that  fuller,  wider  relation  of  our  activity  to  the 
rest  of  being;  it  affirms  our  self -hood  in  its  entirety,  thus 
bringing  it  into  relation  to  other  selves,  to  the  whole  of 
reality,  to  the  Absolute  Person,  and  constitutes  us  mem- 
bers of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  These  religious  terms  are 
among  the  highest  expressions  of  the  fundamental  impulse 
to  life  that  everywhere  posits  its  fulfillment  and  satisfac- 
tion. When  the  awakening  soul  is  able  to  appreciate  the 
vital  significance  of  these  conceptions,  spiritual  strength 
is  increased  and  the  forces  of  body  and  mind  are  set  free 
in  a  remarkable  degree.  The  way  is  now  open  to  consider 
the  practical  relation  of  morality  and  religion. 


CHAPTER  X 

UNIVERSALITY  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS 
CONSCIOUSNESS 

68.  Religion  as  an  attitude  seems  to  relate  not  only 
to  the  moral  but  to  every  form  of  experience  and  to  be 
supreme  in  life's  activities.  Universality  and  supremacy 
are  not  the  same,  for  the  supremacy  of  religion  means  that 
it  is  the  highest  in  a  given  classification  of  experiences 
while  its  universality  signifies  that  it  is  related  to  all 
experiences  and  may  be  supreme  or  vary  its  relative  posi- 
tion. The  universality  and  supremacy  of  religion,  thus 
understood,  are  somewhat  difficult  to  establish,  though  I 
shall  try  to  show  that  both  are  true. 

An  attitude  is  an  aspect  of  the  subject's  response  to 
sensations,  perceptions  and  conceptual  constructions  what- 
ever they  may  be.  The  conative  life-impulse  expresses 
itself  towards  objective  experiences  in  feelings  of  different 
intensities  and  varying  qualities  evaluating  the  objects 
considered.  To  designate  religion  as  an  attitude  means 
that  religious  experience  has  these  variable  feelings  of 
value  toward  objects,  with  special  qualities  of  its  own. 
As  a  response,  religion  is  a  form  of  adjustment  to  objects 
experienced.  It  is  evident  that,  as  the  subject's  evaluat- 
>  ing  tensive  attitude  in  response  to  the  totality  of  experi- 
ence, religion  may  well  be  regarded  as  both  universal  and 
supreme  in  the  life.  This  provides  for  the  possibility. 
Some  evidences,  though  perhaps  not  complete  proof,  fol- 
low. 

Though  the  religious  aspect  of  experience  may  subside, 
it  does  not  seem  to  be  totally  absent  even  in  mid-life's 
ambitions  and  successes  in  which  there  is  a  tentative  at- 
titude, easily  retreating  from  present  undertakings  to  con- 
template in  wonder  the  flight  of  time,  seeking  some  un- 

165 


166  MOEAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

found  satisfaction.  In  the  moment  of  triumph  and 
power,  this  background  of  religion,  on  occasion,  springs 
into  the  fore-front  of  consciousness,  though  it  may  be  only 
to  ask  the  significance  of  life  itself  whose  brevity  is  never 
quite  forgotten.  The  ambition  and  toil  of  our  most  effi- 
cient periods  have  a  certain  haste  to  work  before  sunset 
comes.  Towards  night,  the  passions  subside,  perhaps  be- 
cause of  declining  powers,  activities  become  mechanized 
so  that  attention  may  be  given  with  increasing  concentra- 
tion to  the  approaching  end.  Old  age  is  the  most  reli- 
gious period.  The  formulations  of  earlier  days  are  not 
held  with  such  absolute  confidence,  for  there  may  be  a  still 
higher  wisdom.  There  is  a  sober,  steadfast  trust,  a  living 
from  day  to  day,  an  expectant  waiting,  a  walking  softly 
as  though  in  a  Presence  that  is  to  be  feared,  revered,  per- 
haps loved,  as  having  our  destiny  in  its  keeping.  This 
attitude  is  also  retrospective  with  a  sense  of  having  lived 
through  experiences  now  somewhat  vaguely  remembered; 
the  past  is  a  far  country  in  which  we  once  had  possessions, 
good  or  bad,  but  none  of  such  value  as  to  survive  as  when 
we  first  knew  them.  This  retrospect  is  profoundly  reli- 
gious uniting  with  present  waiting  for  life's  next  revela- 
tion which  must  come  else  meaning  vanishes  from  the 
whole.  To  this  religious  attitude,  all  the  wisdom,  dignity 
and  worth  of  mankind  are  subordinated  for  religion  is  the 
final  as  it  is  the  first  resort  of  feeling,  thought  and  will 
before  the  mystery  of  existence.  It  is  the  unquenched 
thirst  for  life. 

69.  From  Earliest  times  it  has  been  true  that  no  task 
is  well  begun,  no  journey  prosperous,  no  rule  or  custom 
authoritative,  without  divine  approval  and  assistance. 
"Except  Jehovah  build  the  house,  they  labor  in  vain  that 
build  it.  Except  Jehovah  keep  the  city,  the  watchman 
waketh  but  in  vain'7  (Psl.  127:  1,  2).  Comte  even  called 
the  worship  of  gods  or  God  a  survival  of  the  infancy  of  the 
race,  yet  he  had  his  "religion  of  humanity."  The  modern 
man,  though  regarding  himself  as  matter  of  fact,  makes 


UNIVERSALITY   OF    THE    KEUGIOUS    CONSCIOUSNESS       167 

ventures  with  feelings  and  aspirations  as  full  of  reli- 
gious elements  as  the  simpler  acts  of  his  primitive  brother. 
"In  the  morning  sow  thy  seed,  and  in  the  evening  withhold 
not  thy  hand;  for  thou  knowest  not  which  shall  prosper, 
whether  this  or  that,  or  whether  they  both  shall  be  alike 
good"  (Eccles.  11;  6).  The  hope  of  harvest,  trust 
in  the  authority  of  law  and  custom,  fear  of  disaster,  striv- 
ing for  improvement  guided  by  a  forecasting  idea  of  quiet 
enjoyment  of  vaguely  conceived  good,  are  only  expressions 
of  the  impulse  to  life  positing  its  fulfillment  and  satis- 
faction, which  is  to  be  religious. 

TO.  Natural  science  is  reverent  in  the  search  for  truth 
viewing  its  truths  as  only  rules  of  action  trustworthy  so 
long  as  the  same  conditions  prevail  which  implies  faith  in 
the  uniformity  of  natural  processes,  an  unproved  postu- 
late perhaps  strictly  impossible  since  there  are  no  abso- 
lutely identical  repetitions.  Our  perceptions  of  things 
and  their  interpretations  are  like  "snapshots  of  the  pass- 
ing reality"  and  presupposes  an  exhaustless  flow  of  Cre- 
ative Life  which  we  only  fragmentarily  apprehend. 
"The  cinematographical  character  of  our  knowledge  oi 
things  is  due  to  the  kaleidoscopic  character  of  our  adap- 
tation to  them."  The  scientist  is  not  boastful  but  rever- 
ently conscious  that  hisi  most  useful  conceptions,  like 
atom,  energy,  gravitation,  are  hypothetical  and  acceptable 
only  as  they  serve  to  systematize  thought  and  permit  de- 
ductions verifiable  in  experience.  We  still  have  to  ad- 
mit, with  Hume,  that  matters  of  fact,  and  scientific  laws, 
wait  upon  the  constancy  of  natural  processes  which  they 
formulate.  Faith  in  this  constancy  presupposes  the 
moral  trustworthiness  of  the  universe  itself.160  In  like 
manner,  religious  doctrines  have  a  tentative  character 
and  wait  upon  the  constancy  of  experience  for  confirma- 
tion and  validation. 

71.  The  response  to  the  moral  ideal  is  immediate 
without  considerations  of  reward.  This  insistence  upon 
obedience  of  conscience  indicates  the  incompleteness  of 


168  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

morality  which  finds  interpretation  in  religious  experi- 
ence. It  is  the  function  of  religion  to  extend  the  scope 
of  moral  ideals  until  they  are  viewed  in  the  light  of  the 
whole  of  reality,  that  is,  directly  in  relation  to  the  Divine 
Being.  Crito  urged  Socrates  to  escape  from  prison  hut 
received  the  reply  that  conclusions,  reached  in  favorable 
conditions,  concerning  right  and  good  should  not  be  given 
up  in  unfavorable  circumstances,  for  these  principles  are 
eternal  and  Divine.  Aristotle  regarded  the  moral  virtues 
as  necessary  to  be  attained  since  they  were  a  pre-requisite 
to  the  dianoetic  virtues  in  which  the  soul  rises  to  mystic 
union  with  the  Creative  Reason.  Even  Christianity 
has  an  element  of  haste  to  set  in  order  the  moral  life  be- 
cause of  the  richer  inheritance  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

In  certain  moods,  though  having  insisted  upon  fulfill- 
ment of  moral  obligations,  religion  casts  itself  upon  the 
Divine,  that  is,  the  soul  in  its  depths  appeals  from  human 
distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  as  poor  and  weak,  to  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth  who  surely  will  do  right.  In  health 
and  strength,  one  may  feel  adequate  to  moral  tasks,  but 
long  experience  is  apt  to  bring  a  sense  of  failure  to  fulfill 
moral  ideals  and  to  solve  their  problems.  Then  religion 
asserts  its  power  within  the  soul  afresh  and  looks  to  the  di- 
vine Source  of  existence  with  trust  that  even  these  failures 
may  be  overlooked  and  forgiven,  rejoicing  in  the  sure  ful- 
fillment of  the  divine  purpose.  Then  the  conflict  of  human 
passions  and  .ambitions,  whether  in  the  individual  or 
among  peoples  or  between  nations,  becomes  endurable, 
for  it  is  God  who  will  be  supreme  in  the  heart  and  whose 
purpose  will  be  fulfilled  in  humanity. 

It  is  in  some  such  manner  that  religion  prevails  in  ex- 
perience. The  feebleness  of  human  effort  at  its  best  is 
overwhelming.  The  hunger  of  soul  increases  with  what 
it  feeds  upon,  whether  daily  toil,  science,  art,  morality, 
or  the  contemplation  of  the  collective  life  of  mankind. 
How  could  sin  and  evil — incidents  in  the  human  struggle 
for  good — be  avoided  where  there  is  so  little  to  guide  and 


UNIVERSALITY    OF    THE    EELIGIOUS    CONSCIOUSNESS       169 

where  there  is  so  much  darkness?  Every  prayer  pro- 
claims the  limits  of  will  and  intellect  and  questions 
whether  the  "feelings  of  absolute  dependence"  give  as- 
surance of  anything  beyond  what  we  now  have,  or  spring 
only  out  of  the  processes  within  the  psycho-physical  organ- 
ism beyond  which  they  have  no  significance. 

What  of  death  ?  The  Stoic  would  make  of  it  an  orna- 
ment, Socrates  hoped,  in  the  presence  of  death,  to  the 
last.  ~No  man  has  power,  even  by  suicide,  to  enter  a 
better  world,  or  any  world.  At  the  gate  of  death,  all  are 
naked  and  helpless.  The  other  life  has  to  be  prepared  and 
made  ready.  Everyone,  if  he  enters  at  all,  has  to  be 
taken  into  that  world  by  the  divine  order  of  existence.  If 
there  were  no  other  evidence  of  the  supremacy  of  the 
religious  attitude  in  experience,  it  is  proved  by  the  silent 
awe  before  the  mystery  of  death  and  by  the  search  for 
some  light  of  hope  in  the  tomb.  The  beautiful  story  of 
Jesus  and  the  resurrection  finds  the  empty  human  heart 
desiring  to  believe  but  trembling  with  fear  lest  its  faith 
be  only  a  dream  with  no  waking. 

72.  An  ancient  rivalry  exists  between  philosophy  and 
religion  which  may  be  removed  by  fully  recognizing  that 
the  religious  attitude  is  a  unity  of  thought,  feeling  and 
will  in  relation  to  the  whole  of  experience.  One's  philos- 
ophy is  in  its  turn  a  conceptual  construction  of  the  entire 
experience,  and  hence  religion  and  philosophy  must  have 
much  in  common.  Since  religious  experience  and  the 
yearning  of  the  soul  are  always  topics  for  reflection,  re- 
ligious experience,  in  this  sense,  has  the  supremacy ;  since 
the  philosophy  one  believes  is  determined  largely  by 
moods,  feelings,  needs  and  their  satisfaction,  it  cannot 
be  in  real  conflict  with  the  interests  of  religion.  The 
awakening  of  the  inner  life  is  occasioned  largely  by  the 
jov  and  sorrow  accompanying  impressions  received  from 
the  outer  world.  Our  expectations  and  efforts  may,  at 
one  time,  be  deceived  and  hindered,  at  another,  satisfied 
and  favored,  by  circumstances.  The  death-dealing  storm 


170  MORAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

at  sea  may  bring  refreshment  to  the  village  gardens,  a 
fruitful  source  either  of  prayers,  in  the  one  case,  for  di- 
vine help  and  comfort,  or,  in  the  other,  of  thanksgiving. 
These  prayers  are  often  post  factum  endeavoring  to  fore- 
stall and  perhaps  prevent  a  dreaded  future,  or  to  ensure  a 
future  that  is  desired,  leading  either  to  a  pessimistic  or  to 
an  optimistic  philosophy  of  life.  This  philosophy  is,  in 
some  degree  at  least,  the  resort  of  faith  to  theories  whose 
function  is  to  confirm  beliefs  and  hopes.  At  other  times, 
curiously  enough,  faith  seems  to  glory  in  the  persistence 
of  belief  in  the  face  of  facts  and  well  reasoned  conclusions 
apparently  having  some  secret  source  of  confidence  due, 
probably,  to  unrecognized  psycho-physical  predispositions. 

73.  When  the  inner  life  is  awakened  sufficiently  to 
reflect  upon  the  nature  and  destiny  of  mankind,  it  is 
possible  only  to  affirm  or  deny,  or  affirm  yet  deny,  human 
dignity  and  worth.  A  reverent  conception  of  humanity 
tends  to  exalt  man  in  the  order  of  existence.  "In  the 
quiet  presence  chamber  of  speculative  thought,  it  is  what 
is  good  and  noble  and  significant  in  human  life  that 
stands  out  as  if  it  were  the  whole,  and  all  the  dross  being 
refined  away,  the  image  of  man  is  insensibly  glorified 
into  an  ideal  form  which  not  only  fits  harmoniously  into 
its  place  in  the  intelligible  whole  of  universal  order  but 
merits  a  place  so  prominent  that  it  seems  hardly  possible 
to  describe  worthily  the  significance  of  its  destiny  and 
the  profound  importance  of  its  position  in  the  world." 
It  has  been  quite  common  for  philosophy  to  regard  man 
as  the  "isolated  apex  of  the  phenomenal  world  and  to 
demonstrate  that  the  human  mind  is  the  crown  and  end, 
the  last  link  in  the  chain  of  self-developing  Infinity. 
Human  affection  and  moral  and  religious  aspiration  seem 
to  require  eternal  life  in  which  all  desires  shall  be  satis- 
fied, all  hopes  fulfilled."/61 

The  reverent  conception  of  the  dignity  and  worth  of 
humanity  receives  a  rude  shock  when  brought  into  rela- 
tion with  the  average  man  and  the  complex  and  varied 


UNIVERSALITY    OF    THE    RELIGIOUS    CONSCIOUSNESS       171 

character  of  mankind,  and,  before  we  know  it,  our  mood 
changes  into  an  overwhelming  sense  of  weak  unworthi- 
ness  to  occupy  any  very  prominent  place  in  the  order  of 
things.  We  feel  ourselves  a  feeble  folk,  often  wearing 
out  our  hearts  with  doubt,  bare  of  counsel  and  aid,  and 
feeling  nothing  so  keenly  as  the  uncertainty  of  our  origin, 
fate  and  aims.  The  calm  figures  of  primitive  men  as 
tradition  shows  them  to  us  at  the  beginning  of  history 
wandering  over  the  still  youthful  earth,  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  Paradise  or  in  patriarchal  simplicity,  quickly 
fade  when  we  think  of  the  measureless  multitude  of  man- 
kind. He  who  enters  into  his  closet  and  shuts  the  door 
to  pray  in  secret  feels  the  presence  of  God  sheltering  and 
guarding  him,  but,  when  he  comes  out  into  the  light  and 
realizes  that  this  experience  has  a  thousand-fold  repetition 
in  every  corner  of  the  globe,  it  becomes  an  ordinary  occur- 
rence in  the  course  of  events,  and  loses  its  former  worth. 
"As  our  hearts  are  not  large  enough  to  embrace  all  with 
equally  active  affection,  so  do  we  shun  the  idea  of  sharing 
with  a  countless  number  of  other  persons  our  own  relation 
to  the  Infinite,  and  it  seems  to  us  that  the  strength  of 
the  tie,  and  indeed  our  very  assurance  of  its  reality,  de- 
crease in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  the  number  to 
which  it  is  extended."  (Lotze). 

With  what  inexhaustible  fertility  has  the  earth  pro- 
duced one  race  of  men  after  another,  widely  differing  yet 
alike  in  essentials,  indeed,  in  the  mode  and  condition  of 
their  life  resembling  to  some  extent  those  races  of  beasts 
which,  in  still  greater  multitudes,  inhabit  the  most  remote 
corners  of  the  earth,  and  which  arise  and  pass  away  in 
shoals.  The  more  vividly  all  this  is  present  to  conscious- 
ness, the  more  certain  is  the  mind  to  become  gradually 
possessed  of  the  belief  "that  mankind  is  but  one  of  the 
transitory  phenomena  which  an  eternal  primitive  force, 
revelling  in  the  work  of  alternate  creation  and  destruc- 
tion, brings  forth,  only  that  it  may  vanish  in  its  turn." 
Though  this  view  has  never  been  dominant  or  even  uni- 


172  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

versal,  it  casts  its  shadow  over  all  human  effort.  It  ap- 
pears, without  much  reflection,  as  a  direct  consciousness 
of  their  own  lowliness  and  commonness  in  the  vast  majority 
of  those  who  daily  struggle  with  petty  hindrances  and 
can  only  be  said  to  endure  life  as  a  burden  imposed  upon 
them.  They  know  how  men  are  swept  away  in  shoals 
by  the  course  of  nature  or  by  war.  The  hardships  en- 
countered produce  that  passive  resignation  with  which  in 
all  ages  the  bulk  of  the  human  race  endures  life  and 
death.  "They  do  not  live  their  life  but  they  tolerate  it 
from  its  beginning  to  its  end,  having  no  comprehensive 
aims,  and  only  intent  upon  warding  off  in  detail  immedi- 
ate ill,  and  winning  in  detail  proximate  small  advantages ; 
in  the  same  way,  they  tolerate  death  as  a  necessity  which 
it  would  be  hardly  worth  while  to  escape  for  the  sake  of 
continuing  such  a  life  as  theirs."  16^ 

To  those  more  favorably  circumstanced,  this  dark  sha- 
dow over  mankind  expresses  itself  in  reverence  for  the 
dignity  of  humanity  and  for  moral  greatness  and  purity 
of  life,  which,  it  is  held,  can  still  be  maintained,  though 
one  accepts  the  ultimately  transient  character  of  human 
life  and  denies  the  existence  of  a  spiritual  realm.  But 
can  a  view  which  recognizes  only  a  mechanical  course  of 
nature  account  for  the  feeling  of  reverence  for  the  dignity 
and  worth  of  human  life?  If  we  are  merely  a  passing 
1  phase  in  the  activity  of  an  Infinite  Substance,  is  there 
\any  reason  to  feel  and  maintain  a  sense  of  our  dignity 
land  worth?  Is  it  sufficient  to  ask:  "Do  we,  insatiable, 
desire  to  go  on  feasting  forever,  and  never  to  retire  with 
dignity,  as  satisfied  guests,  from  the  banquet  of  life?" 
Is  it  enough  to  extol  with  mystic  rapture  the  absorption 
of  the  individual  in  the  universal?  However  much  one 
may  attempt  to  persuade  himself  "that  the  self-conscious 
Ego  is  in  fact  only  an  event,  a  vanishing  passage  between 
atoms  variously  moved,  still  the  immediate  consciousness 
of  our  personal  reality  will  always  remain  invincible  to 
these  attempts,  and  we  can  never  think  of  ourselves  as 


UNIVERSALITY    OF    THE    RELIGIOUS    CONSCIOUSNESS        173 

melting  away  in  the  great  receptacle  of  universal  nature," 
for  we  are  never  free  from  a  presentiment  of  something 
supersensuous.  We  are,  however,  unable  to  raise  these 
sentiments  into  a  condition  of  certainty  and  authority 
except  as  we  resort  to  faith. 

Both  the  denial  and  the  affirmation  of  human  worth 
are  appropriated  and  combined  in  religious  faith.  The 
believer  is  sadly  conscious  of  human  frailty.  "As  for 
man,  his  days  are  as  grass ;  as  a  flower  of  the  field,  so  he 
flourisheth.  For  the  wind  passeth  over  it  and  it  is  gone; 
and  the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no  more."  There  is 
no  explanation  of  human  misery.  The  mind  is  numbed 
and  the  tongue  speechless  before  the  awful  darkness  of  hu- 
man life.  Think  of  men,  as  Lotze  says,  tolerating  death 
as  a  necessity  which  it  would  be  hardly  worth  while  to  es- 
cape for  the  sake  of  continuing  such  a  life  as  theirs! 
Think  of  miners  or  seamen  perishing  in  a  moment,  of  the 
feeble-minded,  innocent  because  lacking  in  intelligence 
and  will  and  yet  an  easy  prey  of  bad  environment,  of  the 
idiot  and  imbecile  with  scarcely  mentality  enough  to  be 
differentiated  from  the  brute!  But  these  are  calamities 
due  to  natural  causes.  Think  of  the  tragedy  of  war  and 
of  the  rest  of  man's  self-induced  evils,  of  murder,  of  the 
"poor-sentenced-to-death"  as  one  awaiting  execution  re- 
cently signed  himself  in  his  confession.  It  makes  then 
heart  sick  and  paralyzes  thought.  But  still  we  cannot 
eradicate  the  presentiment  of  some  abiding  worth  in  our 
existence,  though  it  be  almost  a  blind  assertion  of  satis- 
faction and  fulfillment  of  life.  Faith  seizes  upon  this 
presentiment  and  transforms  it  into  a  veritable  reality,  a 
spiritual  realm,  a  Kingdom  of  the  divine  Father  whose 
beneficent  purpose  cannot  fail.  How  victorious  faith  be- 
comes as  it  turns  away  from  human  frailty  to  the  raptur- 
ous contemplation  of  the  good  of  eternal  life !  Is  it  mad- 
ness and  folly,  or  the  highest  wisdom?  Thus  we  beat 
against  the  bars  of  our  necessity  beyond  which  faith 
would  go. 


174  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

74.  The  Christian  religion  has  the  most  inspiring  con- 
ception of  human  destiny,  taking  without  argument  the 
positive  rather  than  the  negative  side  of  the  problem  con- 
cerning human  worth,  though  human  frailty  and  depend- 
ence are  acknowledged.  For  Christianity,  it  is  not  sim- 
ply the  realization  of  the  moral  ideals  of  a  race  that  ulti- 
mately vanishes  in  the  changing  manifestations  of  an 
Infinite  Substance.  But  men  are  children  of  the  divine 
Father  in  whose  kingdom  they  are  enabled  through  love, 
forgiveness  and  assistance  to  fulfill  the  moral  ideals. 
Jesus  rose  from  the  dead  and  we  rise  with  Him,  which 
means  that  eternal  blessed  life  belonged  to  Jesus  as  it 
belongs  to  the  human  spirit  whose  presentiment  of  an 
abiding  worth,  despite  the  tragedy  of  present  existence, 
is  not  in  vain,  for  it  is  a  practical  ideal  of  great  power. 
We  may  even  use  the  words  of  Fichte:  "Thou  workest 
in  me  the  knowledge  of  my  duty,  of  my  vocation  in  the 
world  of  reasonable  beings.  .  .  .  Thou  wiliest  that  my 
free  obedience  shall  bring  with  it  eternal  consequences. 
...  I  am  immortal,  imperishable,  eternal,  as  soon  as  J 
form  the  resolution  to  obey  the  laws  of  reason;  I  do  not 
need  to  become  so."  163 

For  this  larger  and  more  living  faith,  our  earthly  life 
seems  to  be  an  educative  probation,  not  an  end  in  itself, 
"or  of  such  binding  force  that  every  error  of  the  school- 
life  must  have  the  influence  of  an  irrevocable  fate.  From 
this  mode  of  thought  arise  the  conscientiousness,  the  ear- 
nest endeavor,  and  the  patient  love  which  the  mind  ought 
to  bring  to  bear  upon  the  tasks  of  earthly  life,  together 
with  that  still  greater  earnestness  of  mood  and  calm  peace 
which  come  to  us  from  feeling  that  the  imperfection 
of  earthly  effort  has  the  sting  taken  out  of  it ;  for  it  is  not 
the  outward  result  achieved  (which  may  be  insignificant) 
so  much  as  loyal  honest  labor,  which  is  both  the  end  of 
such  effort  and  the  vocation  to  which  we  are  called."  164 

It  is,  however,  only  for  brief  moments  that  we  really 
feel  this  peace.  We  easily  lose  ourselves  again  in  the 


UNIVERSALITY   OF    THE    EELIGIOUS    CONSCIOUSNESS       175 

details  and  the  conflicts  of  the  present.  Our  days  are  not 
all  Sundays.  We  vacillate  between  spiritual  exaltation 
and  the  dull  level  of  prdinary  experience  and,  occasion- 
ally, the  gloom  of  petty  struggles.  It  is  not  easy  to  see 
the  parts  united  in  the  whole  and  to  share  the  divine 
vision  of  the  meaning  of  our  life  and  of  the  world.  After 
all,  we  have  only  a  presentiment,  a  faith,  which  often 
yields  before  the  coarse  vividness  of  concrete  things  pre- 
sented by  the  senses  and  fades  before  hard  mechanical 
processes.  Nevertheless,  faith  is  near,  ready  to  lead 
when  sight  fails  to  find  the  way  to  eternal  life.  Because 
religion  accompanies  human  life  from  its  beginning  and 
is  its  final  resort,  religion  is  in  a  very  real  sense  both 
universal  and  supreme. 


CHAPTEK  XI 

THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  OF  MORALITY 
AND  RELIGION 

•75.  In  the  preceding  chapters,  it  has  been  shown  that 
morality  and  religion  are  essentially  related  and  that  the 
religious  attitude,  as  the  deepest  assertion  of  the  impulse 
to  life,  holds  a  dominating  position  in  experience.  Re- 
ligion, and  we  think  chiefly  of  the  Christian,  relates  our 
activity  to  God  the  Father  and  to  the  divine  kingdom  so 
that  acts  are  thereby  transformed  and  illuminated  with 
the  consequence  that  insight  into  duties  is  promoted  and 
the  springs  of  action  are  strengthened  so  that  a  higher 
level  of  morality  is  attained  with  than  without  religion. 
Hence '  religious  ideas  and  motives,  being  thus  f  unction^- 
ally  beneficial,  are  validated  as  trustworthy  guides  in  the 
effort  to  promote  well-being.  A  more  detailed  study  of 
this  practical  relation  of  morality  and  religion  follows. 

At  once  an  obstacle  is  encountered  in  the  claim  that 
the  idea  of  God  depends  largely  upon  the  moral  develop- 
ment of  a  people,  for  a  people's  god  or  gods  are  like  them- 
selves. Xenophanes  said:  "If  oxen  and  lions  had 
hands  and  could  paint  with  their  hands,  and  fashion  im- 
ages, as  men  do,  they  would  make  the  pictures  and  images 
of  their  gods  in  their  own  likeness."  165  Hence,  if  the 
conception  of  God  is  a  people's  product  and  has  as  its  con- 
tent factors  derived  from  their  moral  attainment,  it  would 
seem  contradictory  to  say  that  to  relate  our  duties  to  God 
tends  to  increase  insight  into  their  number  and  signifi- 
cance, and  to  strengthen  the  springs  of  action  so  as  more 
certainly  to  bring  about  the  deed.  On  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent basis  but  largely  to  the  same  effect,  A.  E.  Taylor  says 
that,  while  morality  passes  into  religion  "in  which  the 

176 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  177 

defects  of  the  narrowly  and  strictly  ethical  experience) 
are,  to  some  extent  at  any  rate,  made  good,"  yet,  in  the 
religious  experience  the  moral  concepts  such  as  obligation, 
merit,  worth,  are  "so  transformed  as  to  be  emptied  of 
all  significance";  in  a  word,  you  cannot  become  truly, 
"religious  without  at  the  same  time  becoming  something 
more — or  less — than  moral."  166 

In  the  light  of  the  social  origin  and  development  of 
morality  and  religion  already  presented,  it  is  true  that  the 
conception  of  the  gods  ,who  guard  the  social  order,  in 
whose  observance  morality  primarily  consists,  is  deter- 
mined by  the  worshiper's  idea  of  moral  conduct.  Wes- 
termarck  even  shows  that  many  savages  chiefly  worship 
evil  spirits  "since  the  others  are  supposed  to  be  so  good 
that  they  require  no  offerings  or  homage."  167  But, 
since  religion  implies  fear,  admiration,-  awe,  and  rever- 
ence,168 men  cannot  long  worship  beings  to  whom  they 
attribute  moral  qualities  inferior  to  their  own.169  There 
is  also  a  selective  tendency  operating  in  the  formation  of' 
the  concept  of  God,  interacting  with  moral  development, 
and  working  toward  the  elevation  of  the  idea  of  the  divine 
Being  which  validates  itself  through  its  beneficial  conse-  ' 
quences  in  the  social  life.  As  a  result,  each  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  concept  of  God  embodies  the  highest 
prevailing  ideal  in  accordance  with  which  the  best  life 
is  to  be  attained.  This  ideal  is  the  product  of  successive 
generations  who  collectively  put  into  it  their  aspirations 
and  hopes.  The  concept  of  God  thus  becomes  a  social  in- 
heritance vaster  in  its  scope,  richer  in  content,  and  more 
abiding  than  any  individual's  idea  can  be — a  fixed  social 
possession  just  as  the  material  world  may  be  regarded 
as  social — a  common  yet  illimitable  possession  towards 
which  certain  modes  of  behavior  are  expected.170  Just 
as  the  concept  of  the  material  world  represents  an  Other 
to  every  mind — fixed  as  a  real  existence  towards  which 
certain  modes  of  behavior  are  required  yet  ever  enriched 
through  the  sciences,  so  does  the  concept  of  God  represent 


178  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

an  Other  constant  and  enduring  but  enriched  through  the 
accumulating  development  of  the  social  mind. 

Herein  also  lies  the  difference  between  the  concept  of 
God  as  social  and  so,  spiritual,  and  the  world-concept  as 
material,  but  both  God  and  the  world  are  involved  in  our 
personal  self-knowledge.  The  social  reconstruction  and 
development  of  the  idea  of  God  takes  place  chiefly  through 
the  initiative  of  the  individual  as  he  appropriates  the! 
social  inheritance.  Especially  does  the  moral  and  reli- 
gious genius  or  prophet  express  a  standard  or  ideal  to 
which  the  group  gradually  becomes  habituated  in  thought 
and  action.  Thus  a  divine  realm  representing  the  best 
of  human  thought  possible  at  the  time  in  the  light  of  the 
people's  history  surrounds  each  action  that  is  adequately 
conceived.  Hence  it  is  not  contradictory  to  hold  that 
morality  is  promoted  by  relating  our  duties  to  God,  since 
the  idea  of  God  derives  its  factors  from  a  people's  moral 
attainment,  but  the  objection  above  referred  to  embodies 
an  important  truth,  for  now  it  means  that  to  relate  an 
act  to  God  is  to  place  it  in  its  objective  relation  to  the 
development  of  humanity  itself.  Nor  is  Taylor  right  in 
saying,  as  above,  that  to  become  religious  is  to  become 
something  more,  or  less,  than  moral,  for  to  become  relig- 
ious is  in  the  highest  sense  to  fulfill  the  moral.  Plato 
recognized  this  truth  by  insisting  that  the  young  should 
grow  up  with  right  conceptions  of  the  gods  who  love 
justice,  truth  and  purity,  for  such  ideas  promote  moral 
attainment.  Likewise  in  the  Hebrew  and  Christian 
religions.  To  the  Hebrew,  Jehovah  is  a  consuming 
fire  toward  iiniquity,  purifying  the  soul  from  sin 
(Malachi  3 :  2,  3).  The  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ 
is  equally  stern  but  it  is  the  sternness,  even  the  jealousy 
of  love,  that  cannot  endure  to  have  men  love  evil  rather 
than  good,  sin  rather  than  holiness,  and  yet  the  Hebrew 
idea  of  God  is,  in  a  very  real  sense,  a  product  of  the  peo- 
ple's moral  and  religious  experience.  The  Kingdom  of 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  179 

God  is  not  only  of  righteousness  but  of  saving  love  that 
would  rescue  those  who  are  perishing  because  of  their 
misplaced  affections  and  misconceptions  of  the  meaning 
of  life.  But  the  idea  of  the  Kingdom  also  reflects  the 
qualities  of  the  people's  social  development.  To  act  in 
vivid  consciousness  of  God  and  His  Kingdom  cannot  but 
give  deeper  insight  into  duties  and  arouse  greater  effort 
to  fulfill  moral  ideals. 

76.  The  religious  nature  does  not  always  utter  itself 
so  acceptably  as  it  does  in  the  Christian  conception  of  God 
which  spreads  before  the  moral  consciousness  such  an 
ideal  of  the  fulfillment  of  life  that  nothing  seems  lacking. 
Religion  may  identify  the  Infinite  with  the  boundless  ex- 
tent and  power  of  nature.  What,  then,  is  man  but  a 
phase  of  the  objective  world? — that  is,  of  the  Infinite? 
Then,  with  Spinoza,  we  may  feel  impelled  to  say,  God  is 
all,  the  one  Substance.  The  next  step  would  probably 
lead  to  the  Nirvana  of  the  Buddhist,  the  ecstasy  of  the 
mystic  who,  indeed,  has  an  ethic  but,  after  it  has  per- 
formed its  function  in  connection  with  existence,  itself 
an  evil,  is  left  behind  in  the  antechamber  when  the  devout 
soul  enters  into  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  temple  of  reli- 
gion which  is  final  identity  with  the  One.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  religious  element  in  the  response  to  the  beauty 
and  majesty  of  nature  which  are  only  poorly  represented 
by  the  formulas  of  the  exact  sciences.  But,  under  the 
influence  of  biology  and  allied  sciences,  the  conception 
of  nature  has  been  enriched  and  lifted  up  until  it  is 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  spiritual.  These  scien- 
ces themselves  have  done  much  to  overcome  the  crude 
distinctions  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural 
which  presuppose  the  eighteenth  century  mechanistic 
conception  of  the  universe.  But  the  Infinite  of  Nature 
which  may  be  impersonal,  unconscious,  and  unloving, 
needs  to  be  transcended  and  transformed  by  religion,  if 
it  is  to  inspire  life.  This  is  done  by  Christianity  with 


180  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

its  idea  of  God  as  the  Father  in  loving,  protecting,  saving 
relation  to  His  children  who  are  never  to  lose  their  indi- 
viduality. 

Another  inadequate  interpretation  of  religion  regards 
the  object  of  worship  as  the  moral  law  in  its  absoluteness. 
Fichte  held  that  this  moral  Law  is  not  a  personal  Life, 
though  he  did  designate  it  as  Will.  But,  since  the  moral 
law  in  its  abstract  character  is  not  a  convenient  object  of 
worship,  it  assumes  concrete  form  as  the  supreme  Law- 
giver of  the  Jewish  religion  who,  though  in  some  sense 
limited  by  the  refractory  world,  imposes  upon  it  the  Law 
which  is  often  disobeyed;  or,  the  idea  of  a  personal  God 
may  be  abandoned  and  a  substitute  found  in  the  progres- 
sive realization  of  the  moral  ideal  in  a  Religion  of  Hu- 
manity as  instituted  by  Comte  who  represented  mankind 
as  a  Great  Being  striving  to  overcome  the  opposing  ten- 
dencies of  nature.171 

Another  substitute  for  the  personal  God  is  Matthew 
Arnold's  "Power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness"— a  view  that  seems  to  imply  an  irreconcilable  dual- 
ism between  the  good  and  evil  principle  with  no  assurance 
that  the  good  is  supreme.  Arnold,  no  doubt,  believed 
himself  in  accord  with  the  essential  significance  of  Chris- 
tianity, but,  practically,  the  Christian  idea  of  God  as 
Creator  and  Father  of  spirits  and  Ruler  of  the  Kingdom 
of  righteousness  and  love  seems  richer  in  content  and 
more  satisfying  and  efficient  in  relation  to  the  moral  life 
than  this,  or  the  other  forms  of  religion  mentioned.  The 
Christian  faith  takes  up  into  itself,  and  enriches  such 
truths  as :  "Whatever  is  right,  is" ;  or,  as  Carlyle  expresses 
it :  "The  soul  of  the  world  is  just" ;  or,  with  Plato,  "The 
Good"  is  finally  the  only  reality,  though  Burnet  thinks 
this  interpretation  of  Plato  may  be  questioned.172  Chris- 
tianity never  loses  moral  distinctions  in  mystic  ecstasy 
but  confidently  affirms  the  supremacy  of  the  right  and 
good  with  a  faith  that  is.  sorely  needed.  He  who  strug- 
gles with  temptation  sometimes  exclaims:  What  is  the 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  181 

use?  Why  not  appropriate  the  present  to  the  full  and 
enjoy  the  forbidden  fruit?  Why  be  anxious  for  the  evil 
consequences  of  the  morrow  ?  Does  not  even  the  Scrip- 
ture say:  "Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof" 
(Mat.  6.  34)  ?  The  evil  of  tomorrow  can  only  be  suffi- 
cient for  the  day,  and  the  next  will  bring  its  own  evil. 
All  is  vanity,  and,  where  there  is  nothing  steadfast  or 
trustworthy,  all  things  are  indifferent.  But  conscience 
interrupts  this  short-sighted  interpretation  of  life  with 
the  exhortation  not  to  be  deceived,  the  nature  of  exist- 
ence is  not  mocked.  Well-being  is  not  gained  by  evil 
doing.  This  deeper  voice  of  human  nature  speaks  forth 
in  Jesus  who  perceived  the  need  of  saving  men  from  the 
ruin  that  evil  brings.  His  anxiety  to  save  rather  than 
condemn  had  in  it  the  urgency  that  springs  from  the 
knowledge  of  the  deeper  meaning  of  life  and  the  universe. 
So  far  as  the  Christian  religion  is  faithful  to  its  Founder, 
it  has  the  same  urgency  to  save,  due  not  merely  to  love, 
but,  to  the  knowledge  that  this  world  is  founded  in  right- 
eousness and  that  whoever  conflicts  with  these  depths 
of  being  shall  be  broken;  there  is  no  bending  the  keel, 
as  it  were.  The  finally  real  is  not  matter,  nor  an  un- 
known Substance  but  the  Divine  and  finite  spirits7  satisfy- 
ing experience  of  the  good,  the  highest  form  of  empirical 
reality  existent  in  self-conscious  experience.  Hence  "the 
religious  man  does  not  look  at  life  as  a  hopeless  struggle, 
but  as  a  struggle  which  must  succeed  because  it  is  the 
struggle  of  spirit,  and  spirit  is  the  explanation  and  revel- 
ation of  existence."  173 

77.  It  may  be  objected  that,  however  much  religion 
toay  enlarge  the  scope  and  significance  of  moral  ideals,  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  same  person  will  reach  a  higher 
moral  development  with  than  without  religion.  This  ob- 
jection rightly  assumes  that  more  is  required  in  moral  at- 
tainment than  ideas  for,  as  Aristotle  said,  there  must  be 
the  application  of  knowledge  through  voluntary  action. 
Does  religion  increase  the  force  of  the  springs  of  action 


182  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

so  as  to  condition  one  more  certainly  to  do  what  he  ought  ? 
In  support  of  the  affirmative  appeal  may  be  made  to  the 
psychological  principle  of  the  ideo-motor  character  of  con- 
scious states  according  to  which  ideas  that  occupy  the  at- 
tention tend  to  be  expressed  in  action.  Since,  in  particu- 
lar, the  Christian  religion  surrounds  each  duty  with  re- 
lations to  man  and  to  God,  these  ideal  relations  can  but 
tend  to  determine  conduct.  It  was  explained  in  an  earlier 
section  (sec.  23)  how  feelings  and  emotions,  experienced 
in  response  to  conceptions,  largely  determine  whether  or 
not  these  seize  attention  and  become  ends  of  action.  It 
is  precisely  at  this  point  that  religion  contributes  to  moral 
attainment,  for  it  not  only  adds  to  the  significance  of  moral 
ideals  by  giving  them  a  richer  content  and  wider  relations, 
but  quickens  and  deepens  the  feelings  and  emotions  towards 
the  demands  of  conscience,  thus  tending  to  ensure  obedi- 
ence. The  ideational  and  affective  elements  of  the  moral 
and  religious  consciousness  mutually  promote  one  another. 
To  increase  the  ideational  content  is  accompanied  by  an 
affective  attitude  which  tends  to  determine  action  accord- 
ingly. Moral  and  religious  feelings  have  much  in  com- 
mon. Fear  and  reverence  are  experienced  before  the  moral 
ideal-self  and  become  religious  when  the  moral  ideal  is 
related  to  the  Divine  Person.  Morality  says :  Your  own 
nature  demands  that  you  so  act.  Religion  declares :  Your 
act  ought  to  be  done,  not  only  because  your  own  nature  re- 
quires it  but  because  God  demands  it.  /  Kant  said  that  the 
moral  law,  rising  out  of  our  rational  nature,  "completely 
destroys  self-esteem  and  is  an  object  of  highest  reverence" 
whereby  "natural  self-love"  yields  to  "rational  self-love." 
This  reverence  for  the  moral  law  is  itself  morality  regarded 
subjectively  as  motive.  But  this  motive  is  not  complete 
till  the  will  postulates  freedom,  immortality  and  God  whose 
existence  "it  is  morally  necessary  to  hold"  whereby  moral- 
ity becomes  religion  through  "tlie  recognition  of  all  duties 
as  divine  commands."  174 

It  is  indeed  true  that  Kant  regards  the  conception  of 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  183 

God  only  as  a  necessary  postulate  of  the  practical  reason 
but  his  "postulates"  are  filled  with  the  energy  of  will  and 
mean  that  we  are  to  live  as  if  in  the  presence  of  the  su- 
preme Law-giver  who  knows  what  the  moral  law  requires 
and  is  its  living  embodiment,  vitally  interested  in  what  we 
do,  whereby  the  moral  realm  is  transformed  into  the  King- 
dom of  God.  Shadworth  Hodgson  agrees  with  Kant  in  dis- 
tinguishing the  knowledge  of  the  theoretical  reason  from 
the  postulates  of  the  practical  holding  that  it  is  due  to  con- 
science that  we  attribute  "personality  and  moral  goodness  * 
to  the  infinite  Power  which  sustains  the  universe.  .  .  . 
We  give  the  name  of  faith  to  the  belief  which  is  involved 
in  obeying  conscience,  which  carries  us  over  the  boundary 
distinguishing  religion  from  morality  and  which  makes 
morality  known  to  us  as  the  necessary  source  and  parent 
of  religion."  The  reverse  is  also  true,  namely,  that  "re- 
ligion is  the  parent  of  morality  in  the  practical  sense,  that, 
when  accepted  by  faith,  it  becomes  the  most  powerful  of 'all 
the  motives  which  can  be  constantly  operative  in  sustain- 
ing the  moral  life  of  individuals,  by  keeping  the  sense  of  a 
mutually  felt  union  with  the  Eternal  and  Almighty  Being 
ever  present  to  the  mind.  ...  It  is,  therefore,  equally 
true  that  without  morality  there  can  be  no  Faith,  conse- 
quently no  Religion,  and  that  Faith  and  Religion,  when 
once  embraced,  have  an  unique  reaction  upon  the  moral 
life,  out  of  which  they  spring,  and  become  our  true  point 
of  departure  in  sustaining  and  invigorating  it."  175 

But,  if  the  somewhat  vague  Kantian  conception  of  God 
and  of  the  relation  of  morality  and  religion  be  further  en- 
riched by  the  more  appealing  and  satisfying  Christian  idea 
of  the  divine  Father  and  Savior,  how  much  more  certainly 
will  the  fear  and  reverence  before  the  moral  ideal  become 
religious  and  express  themselves  in  loving  obedience!  It 
may  be,  indeed,  that  religion  sometimes  strongly  moves 
the  heart  towards  the  Divine  with  little  apprehension  of 
moral  requirements,  giving  rise  to  the  belief  that  religion 
may  exist  without  morality.  This,  however,  is  only  ap- 


184  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

parent  for  the  duties  that  are  recognized  are,  as  it  were, 
flooded  with  emotion  and  ideas  of  the  supernatural 
amounting  almost  to  superstition,  often  mingled  with  aes- 
thetic feelings,  suggesting  that  the  religious  nature  is  try- 
ing to  make  up  for  moral  deficiencies  by  intensifying  and 
consecrating  the  few  moral  distinctions  that  are  made. 
There  is  abundant  reason  for  this  deep  religious 
spirit,  for  the  moral  drama  is  enacted  as  if  in 
the  presence  of  the  supreme  Law-giver,  and,  if 
we  heed  the  message  of  Jesus,  in  the  presence  of 
the  holy  but  loving  Father  who  watches  with  deepest  con- 
cern the  struggle  of  His  children  up  the  straight  and  nar- 
row way  of  moral  attainment.  Bunyan's  Christian  has 
hard  work  to  find  this  pathway  and  to  keep  in  it,  but  it 
is  a  way  that  has  been  prepared,  there  are  guides,  signs 
and  refreshment  to  be  found  when  most  needed,  indicat- 
ing that  Christian  has  not  been  forgotten,  and  that  his 
struggle  forward  has  been  anticipated.  Thus  it  is  that 
religion  enlarges  and  glorifies  the  prosaic  moral  ideals 
by  a  kingdom  of  thought-relations  and  aspirations  and 
intensifies  and  purifies  the  springs  of  action  with  the  re- 
sult that  a,  higher  degree  of  morality  is  attained  with 
than  without  religion.  A  somewhat  similar  view  is  ex- 
pressed by  Martineau  who  says:  "Understanding  by  're- 
ligion' belief  in  an  ever-living  God,  that  is,  a  divine  Mind 
and  Will  ruling  the  universe  and  holding  moral  relations 
with  mankind.  .  .  the  innermost  seat  of  this  belief  is 
in  the  constitution  of  human  nature;  ...  in  the  soul  of 
religion,  the  apprehension  of  truth  and  the  enthusiasm  of 
devotion  inseparably  blend ;  and  in  proportion  as  either 
is  deserted  by  the  other,  the  conditions  of  right  judgment 
fail."  176 

78.  The  power  of  religion  to  elevate  moral  ideals  and 
to  strengthen  the  springs  of  action  is  in  proportion  to  the 
germinal  character  of  the  idea  of  the  object  worshiped. 
This  conception  of  the  object  revered  always  marks  the 
frontier  of  the  self  in  its  outreaching  towards  further  at- 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  185 

tainment  and  fullness  of  experience  which  can  be  only 
faintly  anticipated.  Reflection  upon  the  object  wor- 
shiped will,  therefore,  tend  to  be  fruitful  according  as  its 
conception  represents  the  needs  of  expanding  life.  Re- 
ligions might  even  be  classified  on  the  basis  of  the  germinal 
character  of  their  conceptions.  The  savage  has  some  ink- 
ling of  the  higher  good  of  which  religion  is  the  affirma- 
tion. Since  the  good  concretely  known  is  found  in  social 
relations,  man  tends  to  make  this  larger  good  depend  upon 
the  help  of  some  being,  or  beings,  in  special  relation  to 
himself,  and,  as  the  social  side  of  life  develops  the  con- 
ception of  this  higher  Socius  gains  in  significance.  Be- 
fore this  8ocius,  the  self  feels  fear  and  reverence  and  an 
impulse  to  fulfill  duties  which  concern  well  being. 

The  name  assigned  to  the  Deity  is  fruitful  for  con- 
templation. How  powerful  has  been  the  Moslem  con- 
ception of  Allah,  the  one  and  only  God  to  whom  every 
human  being  is  responsible  with  entire  acquiescence  in  His 
decrees  and  obedience  to  His  will !  The  Koran  on  every 
page  gives  to  God  the  title,  "the  merciful  and  compassion- 
ate" implying  that  God  sympathizes  with  His  servants 
who  may  look  to  Him  with  love  as  well  as  fear.  Es- 
pecially when  it  originated,  Islam  might  well  rank  as  a 
universal  religion  and  an  admirable  corrective  of  the  pre- 
vailing idolatry  of  heathenism,  for  it  brought  all  wor- 
shipers of  idols  to  faith  in  the  lofty,  yet  simple  rule  of 
the  only  God.  Its  weakness  was  that  it  was  non-progres- 
sive; God  was  conceived  as  too  remote,  not  directly  enter- 
ing into  human  affairs.  Its  morality  was  that  of  the 
stage  at  which  men  emerge  from  idolatry  and  it  is  an 
admirable  instrument  for  the  discipline  of  populations  at 
a  low  stage  of  culture,  being  well-fitted  to  teach  them  a 
certain  measure  of  self-restraint  and  piety,  but  unable 
to  carry  them  on  to  the  higher  development  of  human 
thought  and  life.  It  is  repression  of  freedom.  Allah  is 
but  the  negation  of  other  gods,  steadfast  on  an  exalted 
throne,  not  entering  sympathetically  into  the  manifold 

' 


186  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

growth  of  human  character  and  progress  of  human  affairs 
and  hence  cannot  render  to  humanity  the  highest  service. 
Mohammedanism  seems,  therefore,  to  call  for  a  richer  con- 
ception of  the  divine  Being  in  closer  relation  to  human 
affairs — indeed,  what  is  needed,  is  such  a  conception  of 
God  in  relation  to  men  as  to  be  germinal,  fruitful  of 
beneficial  results,  expanding  and  deepening  with  the  grow- 
ing life  of  mankind.177 

This  deeper  conception  of  the  divine  Being  is  provided 
by  Jesus'  conception  of  God  as  Father  saving,  loving,  sym- 
pathizing with  and  helping  men,  thus  supplying1  those  fac- 
tors to  the  conception  of  God  that  are  fitted  to  render  it 
fruitful.  Here,  it  seems  to  me,  lies  the  superiority  of 
Jesus'  conception  of  man,  of  Himself  and  of  God.  It  is 
the  most  satisfying  affirmation  of  the  human  impulse  to 
life's  attainment.  The  devout  soul  contemplates  with 
wonder  and  love  the  riches  of  grace  in  Christ  Jesus  as 
the  revealer  of  the  saving  power  of  the  Father  and  Lord 
of  all.  It  offers  hope,  too,  it  is  germinal  of  ideals  and  as- 
pirations, stimulates  to  effort,  makes  it  worth  while  to  ful- 
fill duties  which  now  become  direct  implications  of  the 
relations  sustained  to  each  other  and  to  the  spiritual 
society  in  whose  total  experience  of  the  Good  is  the  full- 
est reality. 

This,  however,  is  not  to  say  that  other  religions  en- 
tirely fail,  for  they,  too,  are  affirmations  of  the  great 
human  impulse  to  life  but  less  sufficing  and  able  to  lift 
humanity  to  its  best.  Nor  must  we  think  that  Christian- 
ity is  finished,  for  it  is  not  a  dead  religion;  its  germinal 
character  forecasts  still  nobler  levels  of  life  and  conduct 
both  individual  and  social  than  have  perhaps  ever  been 
conceived,  much  less  attained.  Striking  proof  of  the 
fruitful  character  of  Jesus'  idea  of  man  and  of  God  in  re- 
lation to  morality  is  found  in  the  early  history  of  Christ- 
ianity. It  is  remarkable  that  in  that  corrupt  age  any 
were  able  to  hold  steadily  to  the  ideal  of  moral  purity 
and  of  active  interest  in  the  welfare  of  members  of  the 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  187 

household  of  faith  with  a  sense  of  filial  relation  to  God 
the  Father.  There  was,  indeed,  plenty  of  corruption 
within  the  church,  but  these  ideals  were  maintained  and 
^grew.  The  sacredness  of  family  life,  purity,  and  love  of 
the  brethren,  were  strongly  contrasted  with  the  standards 
of  that  time  and  these  ideals  were  steadfastly  held  in  hope 
and  aspiration  with  the  removal  of  fear,  under  the  domin- 
ance of  the  new  conception  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ.178 

Let  us,  then,  says  Professor  Ladd,  put  the  highest  moral 
ideal  of  the  self  and  the  highest  religious  ideal  together, 
since  they  both  spring  from  the  same  "yearning  of  the 
Will  for  Perfection,"  to  use  the  expression  of  Paulsen. 
The  best  moral  ideal  means  the  best  moral  self  as  a  social 
being — wise,  prudent,  truthful,  sympathetic,  kind,  benevo- 
lent, indeed,  filling  every  duty  of  every  place  and  rela- 
tion in  the  complex  life  of  the  present.  The  best  reli- 
gious ideal  signifies  "faith  in  one  ideal  Personality  whose 
real  being  affords  the  source,  the  sanctions  and  the  guar- 
anty of  the  best  morality."  These  two  ideals,  the  moral 
and  religious,  fuse  together  naturally  to  make  the  most 
inspiring,  comforting,  and  hopeful  attitude  towards  the 
problems  of  morality  and  the  conduct  of  life.179 

79.  It  is  now  evident  that  life  will  become  organized 
and  conduct  regulated  in  proportion  as  the  ideas  of  human 
personality  in  its  highest  expressions,  God  and  the  divine 
Kingdom,  hold  the  attention.  The  psychological  prin- 
ciple of  this  process  is  the  ideo-motor,  idea,- will  relation, 
the  result  of  which  is  that  whatever  dominates  the  mind 
determines  the  whole  life  and  fixes  character.  The  same 
principles  are  operative  in  hypnotism,  auto-suggestion, 
fixed  ideas,  mob-action.  Any  sort  of  end  or  concept  thus 
allowed  to  prevail  in  the  attention  tends  to  organize  and 
determine  action.  It  is  not,  therefore,  distinctive  of  re- 
ligion, as  Coe  seems  to  imply,  to  organize  the  self  and 
•revalue  values.180  Daily  occupation  and  a  relatively  con- 
stant environment  may  so  mould  the  life  that  peace  and 
satisfaction  prevail.  Evil  ends  are  capable  of  doing  this 


188  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

and  of  bringing  relief  from  the  distress  of  the  divided 
self  by  the  repression  of  the  voice  of  conscience  through 
the  habit  of  refusing  to  hear  it.  The  habitual  transgres- 
sor is  at  peace  with  himself  whereas  the  first  offender  suf- 
fers shame  and  remorse  because  of  the  conflict  between  the 
actual  and  ideal  self.  The  organization  of  the  self  does 
not  depend  upon  the  end  being  good  or  bad  so  much  as 
upon  whether  the  end  can  be  made  to  prevail  over  others. 
Usually,  however,  the  unsatisfying  results  of  certain  ac- 
tions tend  to  direct  attention  to  others  accounted  good, 
thus  eliminating  those  that  conflict  with  physical  and 
social  welfare.  To  become  organized  in  harmony  with 
these  socially  accepted  modes  of  conduct  is  to  become  mor- 
ally good.  Then  any  divergence  from  these  standards  is 
painful,  keeping  alive  the  sense  of  limitations  and  longing 
for  the  truer  harmony  with  the  deeper  life  of  humanity 
and,  thereby,  of  God.  The  term,  religion,  may  well  tie 
used  to  designate  these  deeper  tendencies  to  a  more  com- 
plete organization  of  the  self  embraced  in  the  great  affirma- 
tion of  life's  fulfillment  which  is,  for  us,  the  essential 
significance  of  religion.  In  this  sense,  religion  may  well 
be  regarded  as  the  preeminently  organizing  power  of  the 
life  just  because  attention  is  concentrated  upon  the  great 
Socius,  "the  Great  Companion/'  and  the  divine  kingdom 
- — conceptions  which  represent  the  cumulative  experiences 
of  the  race  to  which  one  belongs.  This  is  what  gives  power 
to  mystic  contemplation  in  which  the  divided  self  be- 
comes unified.  Especially  is  it  the  function  of  prayer  to 
deliver  the  worshiper  from  distracted  attention.  In 
prayer,  there  is  retreat  into  the  self  and  yet  a  self-criti- 
ism  in  the  light  of  objective  social  standards.  Prayer 
is  an  "I-thou"  relationship  in  which  the  inner  life  be- 
comes set  in  order  according  to  the  high  ideals  embodied 
in  the  conception  of  God  as  a  member  of  the  divine  king- 
dom, the  principle  being  that,  in  prayer,  attention,  in- 
volving thought,  feeling  and  conative  processes,  is  fixed 
upon  the  objects  of  worship  which  represent  the  ideals 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  189 

and  aspirations  of  the  individual  and  the  people.  Hence, 
as  these  conceptions  are  made  to  dominate  attention,  the 
moral  life  will  be  promoted  and  elevated  and  the  self 
become  organized. 

80.  The  power  of  religion  is  especially  evident  in 
leading  to  moral  reformation.  It  has  been  easy  to  show 
that  religion  supplements  and  completes  a  process  which 
begins  on  a  moral  level,  but  it  has  not  yet  become  clear 
that  religion  is  instrumental  in  initiating  this  process  of 
moral  reformation.  To  himself,  he  who  does  what  is  ob- 
jectively wrong  seems  to  be  doing,  at  least,  a  good,  and,  I 
believe,  for  the  agent  in  the  act  itself,  the  good.  We  saw 
above  that  the  self  might  become  organized  about  an  evil 
end  which  would  appear  as  that  which  ought  to  be  done 
whose  doing  would  bring  peace.  If  so,  how  does  the 
wrong-doer  ever  come  to  recognize  that  his  deeds  are  evil  ? 
The  same  question  appears  in  another  form :  On  what 
ground  do  others  condemn  the  wrong-doer  ?  In  each  case, 
it  is  the  social  reaction  upon  the  agent  that  makes  him 
aware  of  the  nature  of  his  deed  which  is  rejected  because 
it  is  not  in  harmony  with  social  welfare,  and  hence  with 
his  own.  Then,  too,  reflective  mind  will  sooner  or  later 
perceive  the  inner  nothingness  of  evil-doing.  The  devil, 
with  all  his  shrewdness,  says  Paulsen,  cannot  ultimately 
carry  out  his  purposes.181  The  way  of  the  trangressor 
is  hard.  Besides,  a  man's  own  rational  nature  implies 
that  he  will  on  the  whole  choose  the  better,  broader  uni- 
verse of  desire  instead  of  yielding  to  the  enticements  of 
immediate  impulses  and  ends.  Punishment  also  in  its 
various  forms,  whether  the  penalty  of  civil  law,  public 
opinion,  or  physical  and  mental  suffering,  is  the  reaction 
of  the  nature  of  existence  against  the  evil  done,  and  to  be- 
come aware  of  this  tends  to  repentance  and  reformation. 
But,  if  the  religious  consciousness  awakens,  the  motives  to 
reform  are  multiplied  and  intensified  both  by  the  reflec- 
tion that  "it  is  a  fearful  thing  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  living  God"  (Heb.  10:31),  and  by  the  belief  in  the 


190  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

pity  and  longsuffering  patience  of  the  Father  who  sent 
His  Son  to  save  His  children.  Such  ideas  of  the  Divine 
and  human  relationship  do  much  to  bring  about  the  re- 
construction of  motives  and  ideals  of  action  and  to  restore 
the  interrupted  harmony  with  others  and  with  the  Father. 

81.  Religion  goes  beyond  morality  by  providing  for 
the   eradication  of   evil   and   its   consequences.     This    is 
possible  because  sin   and  evil,   like  good,   exist  only  in 
selves  and  mean,  on  the  one  hand,  interrupted,  on  the 
other,   harmonious,   personal  relations.     If  sin   and  evil 
were  impersonal  things,  there  could  never  be  a  final  elim- 
ination of  them,   and   a  restoration.     But  persons  may 
offend  one  another;  the  hurt  may  enter  deep  into  the  soul 
causing  misery.     It  would  seem  as  though  the  injury  could 
never    be    overcome.     But    love,    forgiveness,    sympathy, 
with  constant  intimate  relations,  are  capable  of  building  up 
these  persons  so  as  to  make  them  better  and  stronger  than 
before.     The  consequences  of  evil  are  thus  transformed 
into  good.     Life  develops  under  a  variety  of  conditions 
some  of  which  seem  to  hinder,  whereas,  more  deeply  con- 
sidered, they  contribute  to  moral  and  spiritual  growth. 
Likewise   in  the  human   and   divine   relationship.     The 
Christian  religion,  especially,  so  relates  man  to  the  Father 
that  he  may  hope  for  fullness  of  life,  though  he  has  sin- 
ned, since  love  and  forgiveness  make  possible  and  tend  to 
promote  an  attainment  otherwise  unlikely  to  occur. 

This  conception  of  God  as  holy,  loving,  forgiving,  and 
triumphing  over  evil,  implies,  I  think,  the  ultimate  win- 
ning to  righteousness  of  those  who  sin.  Must  not  the  di- 
vine omnipotence  and  omniscience  be  carried  into  the  moral 
sphere,  in  our  reflections?  Surely  God  has  power  to  do, 
and  will  do,  what  wisdom  discovers  to  be  required  by  holi- 
ness, and  love  prompts  to  effect.  This  is  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  the  religious  impulse  to  life  which  posits  its 
ultimate  fulfillment  and  satisfaction. 

82.  The    principle    upon    which    the    elimination    of 
evil  and  its  consequences  culminating  in  the  fulfillment 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  191 

of  life  depends  is  implied  in  Jesus'  rejection  of  vengeance. 
Not  aan  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  but: 
"Resist  not  him  that  is  evil;  but  whosoever  smiteth  thee 
on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also'7  (Matt. 
5:  38,  39).  Strong,  good  manhood  seems  to  require  the 
opposite.  It  is  an  hard  saying  which  led  Nietzsche,  for 
example,  to  view  Christianity  as  practical  sympathy  with 
the  botched  and  weak  and  its  morality  as  that  of  the  slave 
moved  by  fear.  But  Jesus  is  here  teaching  the  greatest 
strength  and  courage.  Nor  is  it,  I  think,  a  new  doctrine, 
for  Plato  spoke  of  "the  uninstructed  courage,  such  as 
that  of  the  wild  beast  or  slave"  in  contrast  with  the  true 
courage  which  is  a  "sort  of  universal  preserving  power  of 
true  opinion  in  conformity  with  law  about  real  and  false 
dangers"  (Rep.  IV.  Par.  430).  This  sort  of  courage 
is  able  to  withstand  "toils  and  pains  and  conflicts,"  and 
"always  remembers  and  is  not  deceived  and  does  not  yield 
to  enchantments  and  the  enticements  of  pleasures" — all 
of  which  try  one  "more  thoroughly  than  gold  is  tried  in 
the  fire"  (Rep.  III.  Par.  413). 

Jesus'  saying  is  confirmed  by  experience.  Suppose, 
for  example,  some  strong,  good  man,  honored  by  all, 
to  be  struck.  We  do  not  expect  him  to  strike  back,  like 
a  slave  or  a  wild  beast,  but  to  remember  the  chief  aim 
in  life.  If  he  becomes  angry,  he  shows  both  fear  and 
weakness ;  but,  if  this  just,  good  man,  even  though  suffer- 
ing wounds,  steadily  maintains  his  purpose,  he  possesses 
the  instructed  courage  of  which  Plato  speaks.  A  dog' 
snarls  and  bites,  if  attacked.  A  child  strikes  the  parent 
who  interferes.  Jesus  is  the  supreme  example  of  His 
own  teaching.  He  had  a  clear  conception  of  the  meaning 
of  His  life  in  the  world.  Nothing  could  deflect  Him 
from  His  mission.  The  love  of  the  disciples,  the  adula- 
tion of  the  multitudes  who  would  make  Him  King;  pov- 
erty, homelessness,  loneliness,  desertiom,  bufferings,  in- 
sults, scourgings,  crucifixion,  only  evoked  the  prayer: 
"Father,  forgive  them;  for  they  know  not  what  thev  do" 


192  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

(Luke  23:34).  His  purpose  remained  unchanged. 
Was  not  this  supreme  courage  and  strength  ?  "Resist  not 
him  that  is  evil;"  he  is  already  defeated  in  God's  good 
world.  The  evil  man  cannot  by  evil  injure  the  just  good 
man. 

Faithfulness  to  the  purpose  in  life  in  which  reality  as 
persons  consists  may  require  forceful  treatment  of  those 
who  war  upon  this  supreme  end,  but  this  is  not  vengeance. 
Out  of  zeal  for  His  Father's  house  that  it  should  not  be 
a  house  of  merchandise,  Jesus  "made  a  scourge  of  cords 
and  cast  all  out  of  the  temple"  (Jn.  2:14-16).  This 
was  faithfulness  to  His  life-purpose,  not  vengeance,  nor 
punishment,  involving  incidentally  the  scourge  of  cords 
and  the  overthrow  of  the  money-changers.  Vengeance  is 
neither  justice  nor  goodness,  though  it  masquerades  in 
their  garb,  for  the  principle,  "an  eye  for  an  eye,"  waits 
upon  evil  as  its  condition  and  is  restricted  by  the  sort  of 
evil  done,  while  justice  and  goodness  are  positive  and  in- 
itiative of  processes  tending  to  the  fulfillment  of  life's 
end  whether  or  not  offences  come.  Besides,  justice  and 
goodness  are  rational  while  sin  and  evil  are  not  and  can* 
not  be  unified,  but,  since  acts  of  vengeance  wait  upon  evil, 
they  are  irrational  and  cannot  be  unified.  Since  strength 
and  goodness  of  character  require  unity  of  action  and 
purpose,  acts  of  vengeance  can  be  neither  morally  good 
nor  an  evidence  of  strength. 

"An  eye  for  an  eye"  also  requires  judgment  of  others  to 
strike  back  according  to  responsibility,  thus  assuming  the 
role  of  justice  which  Jesus  never  forbade.  But  ven- 
geance casts  off  the  grab  of  justice  since  it  gloats  in  ex- 
cess. But,  if  vengeance  would  return  evil  for  evil,  it 
would  seem  to  require  judgment  in  recognition  of  respon- 
sibility, but  this  is  impracticable,  for  we  do  not  know  even 
our  own  hearts.  "Judge  not."  Besides,  if  every  one 
were  to  recompense  evil  according  to  variable  personal 
judgments,  social  chaos  would  result,  since  vengeful  acts 
would  partake  of  the  unorganizable  nature  of  evils 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  193 

avenged.  The  only  safe  way  is  to  "overcome  evil  with 
good"  (Rom.  12.  17-21)  by  fulfillment  of  life's  purpose 
in  harmony  with  the  supreme  good  of  whose  triumph  faith 
assures.  From  this  broader  point  of  view,  the  offender 
is  one  who  has  turned  aside  from  the  chief  end  of  his  life 
which  requires  all  his  time  and  effort,  and  hence  is  to  be 
pitied,  helped  instead  of  hindered,  and  won  back  to  his 
proper  business  by  those  who  are  strong  enough  to  move 
steadily  along  the  true  course  of  life  and  who  have  no  time 
nor  effort  to  spare  from  their  own  high  aims  in  order  to  in- 
flict vengeance  upon  others.  Besides,  it  is  folly  to  break 
the  already  "bruised  reed,"  or  quench  "the  smoking  flax" 
that  gives  so  feeble  a  light  (Is.  42 :  3). 

"Resist  not  evil"  in  the  sense  of  taking  vengeance  for 
offences  expresses  exactly  our  relation  to  God,  and  shows 
how  religion  supplements  and  completes  morality.  Our 
neglect  of  duty,  our  wrong-doing,  mean  that  we  would 
assail  God  Himself.  But  shall  God  give  blow  for  blow? 
Is  God  so  small  and  weak,  so  afraid  of  us,  that,  "like  a 
wild  beast,  or  slave,"  He  forgets  who  He  is  and  what  we 
are?  Instead,  like  a  father,  He  pities  because  He  know- 
eth  our  frame.  He  remembereth  that  we  are  dust. 
What  need  of  contending  with  us  ?  Still,  like  angry  chil- 
dren struggling  in  the  arms  of  a  strong,  loving  parent, 
we  dash  ourselves  against  the  majesty,  power  and  wisdom 
of  God  whose  loving-kindness  and  long-suffering  patience 
continue  to  hold  us  in  His  beneficent  purpose  till  we 
awaken  to  the  vanity  of  our  rebellion,  understand  His 
goodness  and  become  quiet  in  loving  obedience  to  His  will. 
Of  course  we  have  suffered,  but  it  has  been  good  for  us. 
The  very  patience  and  loving-kindness  of  God  reveal  the 
divine  faithfulness  to  the  knowledge  that  we  shall  finally 
love  and  obey  Him.  The  moral  law  thunders  its  anathe- 
mas because  of  our  evil  deeds.  There  seems  to  be  no 
hope  of  recovering  our  lost  estate,  or,  perhaps  more  cor- 
rectly, of  gaining  our  true  estate,  so  long  as  we  remain 
within  the  moral  sphere.  But,  when  we  realize  the  Sav- 


194  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

iorhood  of  God  whose  purpose  to  save  is  not  turned  away 
through  vengeance  because  of  our  evil  deeds  but  remains? 
steadfast  in  the  strength  of  love  and  mercy,  new  hope 
comes  and  we  turn  into  the  way  of  life. 

83.  The  discussion  has  placed  much  emphasis  upon 
the  social  relations  of  personal  experience.  A  few  words 
may  now  be  devoted  to  the  fact  that  religion  tends  to  as- 
sume objective  form  in  social  organizations  purposely  in- 
stituted for  moral  and  religious  culture.  Religious  so- 
cieties have  had  a  long  history.  The  Pythagorean  and 
Orphic  communities,  the  Essenes,  the  Christian  church, 
the  monastic  orders,  all  spring  from  the  need  of  mutual 
assistance  in  moral  and  religious  attainment.  The  term, 
church,  though  Christian,  may  be  used  to  designate  the 
social  organization  of  the  religious  life  whose  purpose  is 
to  cultivate  the  virtues  and  to  deepen  the  religious  spirit 
and  which  finds  its  normal  expression  in  the  service  of 
others.  The  weak  and  sinful  still  have  the  abiding  worth 
of  personality.  The  religious  good  man  feels  the  obli- 
gation to  virtue  for  the  sake  of  the  welfare  of  mankind. 
State,  church  and  family  are  the  social  centers  about  which 
a  large  part  of  the  life  of  mankind  moves;  perhaps  they 
are,  within  Christendom  at  least,  units  within  a  whole. 
The  order  which  has  prevailed  longest  has  been  the  church 
supreme  over  state  and  family. 

Since  the  various  social  institutions  are  an  outgrowth 
of  human  needs  and  minister  to  them  (sec.  48),  the 
church  whose  function  is  to  cultivate  and  promote  moral 
and  religious  life  is  a  necessity  in  every  community. 
Catholicism  would  make  the  church  supreme  over  the 
state  because  it  provides  for  the  more  important  part  of 
man.  Other  ideals  are  those  of  the  state-church  and  the 
church  as  a  local  voluntarily  supported  organization. 
But,  whatever  the  relation  of  the  social  institution's  to 
each  other,  the  church  has  a  place  among  them  minister- 
ing to  the  common  welfare  and  founded  upon  the  essen- 
tially religious  nature  of  mankind,  a  fact  that  should  not 


THE  PRACTICAL  RELATION  195 

be  forgotten  in  the  discussion  of  ways  and  means  of  sup- 
port. The  existence  of-  the  church  as  a  social  institution 
obligates  the  members  of  society  to  make  a  due  response 
to  it  as  an  institution  whose  function  is  to  promote  moral 
and  religious  culture.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  majority 
in  every  community  recognizes  an  obligation  to  perform 
certain  acts  as  religious  duties  important  for  individ- 
ual and  social  welfare.  A  vast  amount  of  religious  faith 
of  one  kind  or  another  renders  it  practically  impossible  for 
one  to  live  uninfluenced  by  the  religious  ideals  of  the  mul- 
titude and  the  chances  are  that  one  will  make  some  form 
of  these  faiths  postulates  of  his  own  morality. 

The  church,  however,  should  guard  against  its  peculiar 
temptation  to  seek  spiritual  culture  in  retirement  from  the 
evolving  life  of  the  people.  Its  place  is  in  the  midst  of 
the  world's  labor  and  turmoil  where  there  are  desperate 
earnestness  and  vivid  reality,  and  where  people  scarcely 
have  time  to  think  before  they  are  overtaken,  as  Socrates 
said,  "by  the  swift  runner,  death."  The  message  of  the 
church  should  be  uttered  where  men  and  women  live  and 
work.  But  the  church  and  its  representatives  are  often 
made  to  appear  to  disadvantage  by  clerical  rivalries  and 
mannerisms  and  by  religious  literature  and  addresses  pre- 
senting familiar  thoughts  in  a  form  intended  to  appeal 
to  the  emotions  while  the  stream  of  the  world's  life  flows 
by  unheeded.  Instead,  the  church  should  cultivate  its 
morals  and  religion  in  the  midst  of  the  day's  work,  and  be 
to  it  a  strength  and  refuge,  confident  that  the  other  life 
is  to  be  found  in  this  life  with  the  assurance  that  this  life 
passes  into  the  fullness  of  another.* 

*E.  S.  Ames:  The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  Ch.  XV., 
which  presents  the  essential  identity  of  morality  and  religion,  also 
F.  Tracy:  The  Psychology  of  Adolescence,  pp.  160-205  shows  the 
development  of  morality  and  religion  in  early  life.  J.  B.  Pratt: 
The  Religious  Consciousness. 


PAET  III 

PHILOSOPHY  OF  MOEALS  AND  EELIGION 
CHAPTEE  XII 

EEALITY  AND  THE  MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS 
CONSCIOUSNESS 

84.  Morality  and  religion  each  imply  views  of  reality 
which  it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  reconcile.  On  the  one 
hand,  religion  affirms  the  moral  antithesis  of  right  and 
wrong,  good  and  bad,  hut,  on  the  other,  believes  that  right 
and  good  finally  triumph.  With  morality,  religion  de- 
clares that  the  issue  depends  upon  what  we  do,  yet  faith 
has  its  atonement  which  maintains  the  perfection  of  the 
whole  in  spite  of  our  sin  which  cannot  defeat  God.  We 
feel  morally  responsible  for  evil  deeds,  yet,  in  our  deepest 
sense  of  guilt,  turn  swiftly  to  the  divinely  perfect  purpose 
in  the  world.  It  is  only  relatively  that  we  dare  stand  by 
our  bad  conduct  as  determining  final  issues,  for  we  insist 
that  the  perfection  of  the  whole  shall  abide.  Amidst  the 
clash  of  arms,  faith  prays  to  the  God  of  battles.  Though 
the  heathen  rage,  God  reigns  and  all  is  well  on  the  earth. 
However  great  the  moral  and  intellectual  darkness,  God 
gives  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into 
the  world.  A  like  fear  and  reverence  are  felt  towards 
the  moral  ideal  and  towards  the  Being  whom  faith  calls 
God.  Thus  morality  and  religion  unite  in  recognizing 
the  abiding  differences  between  good  and  evil  and  pro- 
claim that  our  acts  determine  final  issues,  yet,  at  the  same 
time,  both  postulate  the  ultimate  perfection  of  reality  in 
which  all  discords  are  overcome. 

In  our  more  hopeful  moods,  we  seem  to  require  that 

196 


REALITY   AND    THE    MORAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  197 

our  moral  effort  should  have  eternal  value,  but  the  moral 
consciousness  knows  only  the  one  thing  to  do  which  is  re- 
quired by  the  concrete  situation.  Morally  all  I  am  sure  oi 
is  that  I  am  required  to  act,  or,  to  do  what  I  expect  of  my- 
self, nor  do  I  know  how  this  expectation  has  arisen.  To 
ask  for  an  issue  is  to  p]ace  the  emphasis  upon  something 
besides  the  act  where  morally  it  properly  belongs.  Nor  is 
the  act  done  in  order  to  gain  morality,  but  simply  for  the 
act's  sake.  Xor  does  the  moral  require  that  I  be  saved  or 
contribute  to  the  world's  salvation,  except  so  far  as  my 
present  deed  is  just  now  my  salvation  as  a  moral  being. 
Morally,  I  am  like  a  soldier  on  the  battlefield.  All  talk 
of  peace  is  out  of  place;  perhaps  there  never  will  be  any 
peace  nor  any  issue,  the  fight  being  continuous,  or  termi- 
nating through  the  annihilation  of  the  contestants  and  then 
there  would  not  be  left  a  trace  of  the  moral  carnage : 

"A  strange  picture  we  make  on  our  way  to  our  chinv 
seras,  ceaselessly  marching,  grudging  ourselves  the  time 
for  rest;  indefatigable,  adventurous  pioneers.  It  is 
true  that  we  shall  never  reach  the  goal ;  it  is  even  more 
than  probable  that  there  is  no  such  place ;  and  if  we  lived 
for  centuries  and  were  endowed  with  the  powers  of  a 
god,  we  should  find  ourselves  not  much  nearer  what  we 
wanted  at  the  end.  O  toiling  hands  of  mortals !  O 
unwearied  feet,  traveling  ye  know  not  whither !  Soon, 
soon,  it  seems  to  you,  you  must  come  forth  on  some 
conspicuous  hilltop,  and  but  a  little  way  further,  against 
the  setting  sun,  descry  the  spires  of  El  Dorado.  Little 
do  ye  know  your  own  blessedness;  for  to  travel  hope- 
fully is  a  better  thing  than  to  arrive,  and  the  true  suc- 
cess is  to  labor."  182 

The  moral  consciousness,  however,  opens  the  way  for 
religion,  as,  for  example,  in  the  belief  that  what  we  do 
brings  us  farther  on  our  journey,  and  determines  our  des- 
tiny which  is  a  word  of  religious  significance.  Even  the 


198  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

terms  descriptive  of  conscience  as  what  one  expects  of 
himself  assume  a  good  or  value  to  be  realized  and  a  sense 
of  deficiency  or  sin  with  the  accompanying  striving  for 
salvation  in  the  attainment  of  good.  To  speak  as  we  do 
of  the  development  of  the  moral  consciousness  in  the  indi- 
vidual and  in  the  race  postulates  an  end  by  which  to  meas- 
ure progress.  To  say  conscience  changes  from  generation 
to  generation  and  in  the  individual  is  not  to  say  conscience 
develops,  for  change  and  development  are  not  the  same. 
The  biologist  notes  the  changes  that  have  taken  place  to 
produce  plants  and  animals  but  does  not  measure  these 
changes  by  a  scale  of  values  determined  by  an  end.  In- 
deed, progress,  decay,  development  and  end  are  categories 
which  an  evaluating  subject  uses  to  express  his  apprecia- 
tive attitude  towards  observed  changes.  In  like  manner, 
the  changes  in  the  conscience  of  men  from  generation  to 
generation  are  not  necessarily  regarded  as  a  development 
from  lower  to  higher  which  would  imply  that  the  observer 
has  already  determined  the  end  by  which  to  estimate  this 
development,  the  end  in  some  measure  being  known. 
When  we  have  gone  so  far  as  to  assign  this  end,  it  becomes 
not  only  the  goal  but  the  starting-point  in  the  sense  of 
what  is  to  be  and  is  implicit  in  each  change  that  occurs. 
In  this  end  also  the  good  is  assumed,  the  well-being  which 
is  now  thought  to  give  meaning  to  human  activity  and  to 
reality  itself. 

Religion  now  enters  to  confirm  this  implication  of  the 
moral  consciousness  and  attaches  itself  to  the  positive  ele- 
ment in  the  hesitation  that  arises  in  connection  with  the 
claim  that  our  moral  deeds  determine  final  issues.  Do 
we  ask  that  what  we  do  in  response  to  the  voice  of  con- 
science should  be  a  determining  factor  in  the  significance 
of  reality  ?  Are  we  sure  that  we  want  this  ?  And  yet 
how  can  we  give  any  present  value  to  what  we  do  if 
values  are  ultimately  ineffective  or  lost?  Religion  tries 
to  hold  both  sides  of  the  antithesis  and  is  ambiguous,  for 
it  says,  values  are  not  lost,  yet  our  deeds  cannot  change 


BEAUTY  AND  THE  MOBAL  CONSCIOUSNESS     199 

the  divine  issue.  The  everlasting  hills  sooner  change 
than  God's  abiding  will,  let  man  do  what  and  as  he  does. 
Do  any  of  us,  then,  do  anything  that  makes  a  particle  of 
difference  in  reality  ?  "The  consummation  of  the  infinite 
aim/'  it  has  been  said,  ".  .  .  consists  merely  in  removing 
the  illusion  which  makes  it  seem  as  yet  unaccom- 
published."  183  Are  values  anything  at  all  except  unique 
feelings  of  satisfaction  joined  with  ideas  in  some  passing 
conscious  states  called  personality  abiding  for  a  moment 
or  two  in  the  eternal  measures  of  time  ?  Are  values  lost  ? 
Or,  do  values  contain  the  secret  of  truth,  life  and  reality  ? 
The  contradictions  inherent  in  the  moral  and  religious 
consciousness  become  more  evident  when  our  acts  are 
thought  of  in  relation  to  the  universe  as  a  whole.  For 
example,  it  seems  as  though  the  relations  of  right  and 
wrong,  good  and  bad,  were  what  the  universe  requires,  for 
they  are  certainly  in  it.  Why,  then,  make  any  change? 
Besides,  if  our  acts  determine  our  destiny,  they  must  be 
destined  to  have  such  a  consequence.  The  relation  be- 
tween act  and  consequence  has  been  established  in  the 
order  of  being  and  everything  is  as  it  ought  to  be  to  pre- 
serve the  perfection  of  the  whole.  The  Christian  doc- 
trine of  salvation  as  instituted  by  divine  love  and  holiness 
to  vindicate  and  maintain  the  kingdom  of  God  seems  to 
rest  upon  the  postulate  of  the  Perfection  of  Being  so  that, 
whatever  our  deeds,  the  whole  remains  unchanged  and  we 
cannot  escape  salvation  if  we  would.  But,  mindful  of  the 
present,  religion  unites  its  voice  with  that  of  conscience 
to  urge  the  faithful  discharge  of  duties  with  the  warning 
of  the  possibilities  that  neither  we  nor  the  world  shall 
be  saved,  for  we  are  creators  of  new  factors  which  may 
make  final  salvation  impossible.  The  conception  of  sal- 
vation also  seems  to  imply  a  like  contradiction.  To  be 
saved  implies  a  standard  to  be  saved  to.  Does  this  mean 
that  there  are  good  and  reasonable  standards,  or  standard, 
too  weak  ever  to  be  carried  out,  which  must  be  the  case 
if  anything  is  ultimately  lost  ?  Does  not  the  supposition 


200  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

of  not  being  saved  mean  a  standard  that  exists  only  in 
thought  too  impotent  to  be  transformed  into  reality  ?  An 
ultimately  defeated  standard  or  ideal  simply  could  not  be, 
reality  being  what  it  is,  hence  it  is  a  false  standard,  and 
self-contradictory.  But,  if  the  standard  or  ideal  of  salva- 
tion is  valid  and  effective,  however  far  short  anyone  may 
fall  in  conduct,  he  can  and  shall  ultimately  accomplish 
what  belongs  to  his  personality  to  be  and  thus  the  concept 
of  salvation  is  inapplicable. 

As  we  follow  these  reflections  which  seem  to  reveal 
contradictions  inherent  in  moral  and  religious  concep- 
tions, we  feel  that  we  have  somehow  been  unfaithful  to 
experience  and  to  reality,  and  we  have.  Properly  under- 
stood, issues  do  depend  upon  us  and  upon  what  we  do 
which  makes  a  difference  in  reality,  and  the  concept 
of  salvation  is  not  inherently  self-contradictory.  But 
the  solution  of  these  problems  is  found,  I  believe,  in  what 
I  have  ventured  to  call  moral  and  religious  realism  to 
be  set  forth  in  the  following  chapter. 

85.  Before  leaving  the  present  topics,  it  is  best  to  note 
briefly  some  of  the  unacceptable  ways  out  of  the  difficulties 
above  enumerated.  One  is  to  regard  the  moral  and  reli- 
gious consciousness  as  merely  a  subjective  disturbing  fac- 
tor inherent  in  our  finiteness  with  its  divided  self-hood. 
The  animal  with  its  wants  satisfied  has  no  mysteries,  no 
conflict  between  the  actual  and  the  ideal,  nor  has  a  god. 
Bergson  assures  us  that  the  instincts  of  animals  guide 
them  safely  and  wisely  with  no  discord.  Only  we  with 
our  striving  blundering  thoughts  have  ideals  unrealized, 
the  postulate  of  whose  realization  is  the  chief  factor  of 
religion.  Indeed,  man  takes  himself  altogether  too  seri- 
ously. 

Theories  of  morals  and  of  religion  occur  in  most  specu- 
lative systems.  But  many  of  these  do  not  do  justice  to 
personal  life,  nor  to  the  permanence  of  moral  values  nor 
is  their  conception  of  the  supreme  reality  satisfactory. 
For  example,  the  moral  drama  shall  sometime  end,  the 


REALITY   AND    THE    MORAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  201 

curtain  fall,  shutting  out  forever  the  stage  upon  which 
our  moral  tragedies  are  enacted.  As  long  as  the  play 
lasts,  there  will  be  a  moral  life,  a  moral  republic  of  hu- 
man beings  competing  with  each  other.  For  the  present, 
our  life  with  its  ups  and  downs  is  a  fretful  collision  of 
forces  soon  to  be  dissipated.  If  a  heavenly  body  were  to 
collide  with  the  earth  causing  it  with  its  living  human 
beings  to  revert  to  the  primal  nebulous  form,  the  moral 
realm  would  cease.  In  the  place  of  the  Christian  con- 
ception of  God,  Schopenhauer  puts  the  blind  Will,  Hart- 
mann  the  Unconscious  Thought  and  Will  of  which  he 
says: 

"Let  the  Unconscious  change  the  combination  of  activi- 
ties or  acts  of  will  which  constitute  me,  and  I  have  be- 
come another ;  let  the  Unconscious  intermit  these  activi- 
ties, and  I  have  ceased  to  be.  I  am  a  phenomenon,  like 
the  rainbow  in  the  cloud.  Like  it,  I  am  born  of  the 
coincidence  of  relations,  become  another  in  every  sec- 
ond, and  shall  dissolve  when  these  relations  are  dis- 
solved. What  is  substance  in  me  is  not  I.  In  the  same 
spot  another  rainbow  may  at  some  time  or  other  stand, 
which  perfectly  resembles  this  one,  but  yet  is  not  the 
same,  for  temporal  continuity  is  wanting;  so  in  my 
stead  an  ego  perfectly  resembling  me  may  also  at  some 
time  or  other  stand,  but  that  will  not  be  me.  The  sun 
alone  is  always  shining  transiently  reflected  from  yon- 
der cloud,  giving  the  rainbow ;  only  the  Unconscious  for- 
ever rules,  which  is  also  mirrored  in  my  brain"  forming 
my  fleeting,  ephemeral  self -hood.184 

From  this  point  of  view,  moral  conflicts  are  as  tran- 
sient as  the  lives  that  bear  them,  and  yet  between  human 
beings  there  is  still  a  moral  drama  and  an  ethic ;  the  strife 
with  evil  and  the  effort  to  realize  the  good  go  on  with 
their  ancient  vigor,  but  the  far  vision  of  religion 
affirms  that  both  cease  in  the  eternal,  primal  unity.  There 


202  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

is,  indeed,  a  religion  of  the  redemption  of  man  and  the 
world,  not  so  much  from  sin  as  from  the  misery  of  ex- 
istence. This  redemption  rests  both  upon  the  distinc- 
tion between  man  and  the  supreme  Being  and  yet  upon 
their  essential  unity.  The  individual  reaches  redemption 
in  natural  death,  but  redemption  in  its  fullness  includes 
that  of  the  world  from  itself  and  of  the  supreme  Being 
from  His  immanence  in  consequence  of  which  He  as 
absolute  Subject  in  finite  subjects  bears  the  suffering  of 
the  world.  Then  God  will  be  all  in  all.  Meanwhile,  God 
acts  all  roles  in  the  tragedy  of  the  world-process,  both 
good  and  bad,  and  when  the  tragedy  is  finished,  He  will 
give  Himself  up  to  rest.  This  is  eudsemonistic  pessimism 
united  with  teleological  optimism.185 

86.  The  ethic  and  religion  of  redemption  above  pre- 
sented lead  into  the  presence  of  the  mystics  who  have 
always  affirmed  the  transient,  illusory  character  of  what 
appears  to  the  senses  and  in  conduct.  Only  the  supreme 
One  is  real  and  in  that  One  there  are  no  distinctions,  no 
antitheses.  The  mystic  is  profoundly  religious.  He 
exhorts  us  to  pass  beyond  things  seen  and  heard;  beyond 
strife  for  ideals,  though  this  itself  is  an  ideal;  beyond 
even  the  distinction  of  self  and  not-self,  into  the  perfect 
One  so  that  there  is  no  sense  of  difference  from  God.  In 
fact,  the  mystic  is  to  lose  self  by  losing  consciousness  of 
self  in  the  One  which  allows  no  distinctions  and  hence  is 
not  self-conscious;  knowledge  and  moral  attainment  have 
value  to  this  end  but  must  be  left  behind  together  with 
their  value,  like  the  images  of  the  gods  in  the  ante- 
chamber, while  the  soul  passes  beyond  knowledge  and  the 
distinctions  of  good  and  evil  into  the  Holy  of  Holies,  into 
identity  with  the  One  like  the  identity  of  circles  with  the 
same  center.  Our  moral  strife,  however  important  as  an 
introduction  to  the  religious  redemptive  ecstasy  of  the 
soul,  is  thus  nothing,  for  the  goal  is  beyond  the  good  and 
the  evil  and  can  never  be  expressed  in  thought.  The 
mind  seeks  satisfaction  by  likening  it  to  a  vast  ocean  of 


BEALITY    AND    THE    MORAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  203 

Being  with   a   smooth   but   limitless   surface,    or  to   an 
eternal  silence  from  which  no  utterance  ever  comes. 

The  views  of  the  mystics  are  widespread  in  the  history 
of  morals  and  religion.  Their  true,  perhaps  original 
home  is  in  India.  Hints  of  the  same  spirit  are  in 
Platonism.  Plotinus,  the  Neo-Platonist,  has  been 
called  "the  mystic  of  the  mystics,"  and,  through  Neo- 
Platonism,  the  mystic  spirit  passed  into  Christian  theology 
and  was  an  influential  motive  in  the  philosophy  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Mysticism  has  prevailed  longest  in  the 
thought  and  religions  of  India  where  it  still  holds  a 
commanding  place.  The  conception  of  this  life  as  an 
evil  burden,  "like  a  horrid  corpse  bound  to  the  neck/'  of 
the  Path  or  Way,  and  of  Salvation,  are  the  three  cen- 
tral ideas.  Salvation  is  the  goal  to  which  the  Way  leads, 
— Nirvana,  absorption  of  the  soul  of  the  individual  into 
the  World-soul  from  which  it  came,  the  cessation  of  that 
otherwise  endless  succession  of  conscious  states  rendered 
miserable  by  unsatisfied  desires.  The  Path,  the  Way,  is 
purity  of  heart,  wisdom,  courage,  kindness,  chastity,  re- 
nunciation, and  the  other  virtues,  with  prayer  and  medi- 
tation, all  of  which  bring  the  soul  nearer  to  its  destina- 
tion. This  is  the  pathetic  meditation  of  the  Buddhistic 
faith : 

"Subject  to  birth,  old  age,  disease, 

Extinction  will  I  seek  to  find 

Where  no  decay  is  ever  known, 

Nor  death,  but  all  security."  186 

Mysticism  as  a  philosophy  of  life  and  reality  has  an 
element  of  fascination.  Are  not  moral  strivings  but  for 
a  moment,  a  troubled  dream  to  be  dispelled  in  the  morn- 
ing's ecstatic  vision  of  the  Divine?  Are  not  our  lives 
like  an  inlet  of  the  sea  ruffled  by  a  land  breeze  but  losing 
itself  in  the  calm  ocean  depths  ?  Our  reality  is  God's 
reality.  Why  not,  then,  lose  consciousness  of  self  in 
God  ?  We  forget  that  we  are  but  the  passing  mode  of  the 
Infinite  when  we  take  our  strivings  to  know  and  to  do 


204  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

the  good,  and  to  avoid  the  evil  too  seriously.  Our  goal  is 
beyond  the  good  and  evil,  beyond  self -hood,  in  the  Source 
of  Being  where  all  is  calm,  unutterable  peace.  "Believe 
not  those  prattlers,"  says  an  often  quoted  mystical  word, 
"who  boast  that  they  know  God.  Who  knows  Him — is 
silent."  187 

87.  In  more  hopeful  moods,  a  reaction  is  apt  to  occur 
against  the  mystic's  views  in  behalf  of  greater  faithful- 
ness to  experience,  for  we  seem  to  require,  though  the 
mystic  would  count  it  an  evidence  of  our  imperfection, 
that  our  self-conscious  individuality  should  not  be  re- 
solved into  the  primal  elements  or  fused  indistinguishably 
with  the  Divine  and  that  our  moral  effort  should  have 
some  permanent  value.  It  is  just  because  mysticism 
separates  morality  and  religion,  in  the  manner  explained, 
that  it  loses  all  definiteness  of  religious  thought  and  indi- 
viduality, for  the  true  ethical  personality  is  inseparable 
from  concrete  social  relations.  Besides,  religion  is  social 
and  cannot  be  isolated  from  the  ethical  (sec.  64).  It 
seems,  therefore,  necessary  to  reject  all  those  views  of 
morality  and  religion  which  would  solve  difficulties  by 
holding  the  cessation  of  our  individuality  as  self-conscious 
evaluating  persons.  Instead,  it  seems  more  satisfying  to 
think  of  God  as  Perfect  Ethical  Spirit  and  of  man  as 
potentially  a  son  of  God  capable  of  moral  and  spiritual 
union  with  the  divine  Father,  "in  a  kingdom  of  redeemed 
and  blessed  spirits,  which  furnishes  the  highest  type  of 
the  soul's  immortality  and  which  becomes  the  object  of 
the  soul's  highest  endeavor."  188 

There  still  remains,  among  others,  such  a  position  as 
that  of  Shadworth  Hodgson  who  accepts  these  lofty  con- 
ceptions of  morality  and  religion  but  regards  them  as 
symbolic  only  of  "the  confidence  that  the  power  which  we 
exert  in  the  active  and  habitual  obedience  to  conscience 
is  identical  in  kind  and  continuous  in  fact  with  the  inmost 
nature  of  the  infinite  and  eternal  Power  which  sustains 
the  universe"  and  "of  which  the  real  conditioning  of 


REALITY    AND    THE    MORAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  205 

every  human  and  individual  consciousness  is  an  infinites- 
imal portion  and  derivation."  189  Nor  have  we  any 
knowledge  of  this  Power  as  a  divine  Person  to  be  praised 
or  blamed  or  to  recognize  moral  distinctions  or  to  cause 
the  triumph  of  good  over  evil,  for  "it  is  wholly  beyond  the 
reach  of  speculative  reason  itself  to  even  grasp  the  full 
idea  of  the  Power  in  question,  seeing  that  it  is  infinite 
and  eternal,  much  less  to  determine  the  question  of  its 
consciousness  or  of  its  personality."  Hodgson  represents 
many  who,  like  himself,  reduce  moral  and  religious  con- 
ceptions to  symbols  of  faith  in  a  really  unknown  Source 
of  which  we  cannot  be  said  to  have  knowledge. 

Fully  conscious  of  the  difficulties  involved,  I  shall  now 
undertake  to  defend  the  realness,  even  in  its  final  signifi- 
cance, of  our  moral  struggle  and  of  the  permanent  worth 
of  its  results,  for,  practically,  we  do  not  seem  able  to  live 
without  the  assurance  that  something  vital  and  worth 
while  depends  upon  us  and  that  we  have  a  share  in  deter- 
mining ultimate  issues. 


CHAPTEK  XIII 
MORAL  AND  RELIGIOUS  REALISM 

88.  The  contradictions  that  seem  to  inhere  in  moral 
and  religious  conceptions  as  well  as  the  problems  concern- 
ing their  relation  to  reality  are,  it  is  held,  resolved  by  cer- 
tain forms  of  idealism.  There  is  much  in  the  neo-Hegel- 
ian  idealism  to  satisfy  the  moral  and  religious  conscious- 
ness. Some  of  its  conceptions  are  particularly  acceptable 
and  yet  it,  too,  proves  inadequate  impelling  us  to  adopt 
a  modified  form  which  I  shall  venture  to  call  empirical 
realism  in  morals  and  in  religion. 

The  neo-Hegelian  idealism  regards  reality  as  grounded 
in  self-conscious  Spirit  whose  thought  and  will  are  ex- 
pressed in  the  manifold  forms  of  nature  and  finite  person- 
alities— a  unity  of  differences — a  view  that  seems  to  sat- 
isfy many  of  our  requirements.  The  mystic's  undiffer- 
entiated  One  is  avoided,  while  the  finite  self  is  a  member 
of  a  community  of  selves  in  and  through  whom  the  divine 
Being  realizes  His  beneficent  purposes.  Our  life  is  in 
God.  Each  one's  reality  consists  in  the  experienced  pro- 
gressive embodiment  of  a  unique  portion  of  the  divine 
meaning  of  existence;  we  are,  to  use  the  language  of 
religion,  working  out  God's  purpose  whose  fulfillment 
gives  eternal  significance  and  value  to  our  existence. 
Our  freedom  is  but  the  will  of  God  in  us  who  wills  that 
we  should  be  individuals,  that  what  we  do  should  be 
unique,  distinct  from  others,  yet  all  are  one  in  God. 
We  are  seeking  God  when  we  most  seek  our  real  self 
which  is  found  only  in  God.  Our  developing  conscious- 
ness implies  an  increasing  clearness  and  widening  of  the 
scope  of  our  ideals  which  seem  constantly  to  require  more 

206 


MORAL   ATTD   RELIGIOUS    REALISM  207 

of  us,  yet  the  whole  fulfills  the  self-hood  that  it  is  the 
divine  Will  we  should  possess. 

There  is  much  comfort  in  this  idealistic  interpretation 
of  our  life.  To  be  at  all  implies  being  of  significance 
and  value  to  ourselves  and  to  the  Source  of  our  existence 
through  fulfilling  a  meaning  in  personal  experience. 
Hence  the  real  is  a  name  or  category  applied  to  certain 
forms  of  experience  in  contrast  with  others  judged  un- 
real, both  being  within  experience.  There  cannot  be  two 
types  of  reals,  but  there  may  be  degrees  of  realness  of  a 
common  type.  Besides,  the  nature  of  the  real  makes 
clear  what  the  unreal  is  which,  therefore,  has  some  sort  of 
character  such  as  not  to  satisfy  the  conditions  of  reality, 
but  the  unreal  is  a  factor  in  experience.  The  real  is  not 
the  imaginary,  and  yet  we  experience  various  fancies. 
Do  we  not  sometimes  have  a  vivid  sense  of  the  nothing- 
ness, the  unreality  of  things,  events,  or  persons,  though 
these  are  facts  of  experience?  Affectation  causes  us  to 
say  of  a  person,  he  is  so  unreal.  The  Preacher  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  convinced  that  "all  is  vanity"  which  he 
could  not  have  declared  had  he  not  had  a  positive  stand- 
ard of  genuineness  and  realness  by  which  to  measure  his 
experiences,  but  this  he  did  not  define,  although  its  rela- 
tion to  feelings  of  satisfaction  is  proved  by  his  longing 
for  something  other  than  the  vain  and  unreal  which  he 
so  thoroughly  knew. 

There  is  also  in  this  idealism  the  assurance  that  the 
real  abides  and  that  values  are  not  lost.  Permanence  and 
change  are  properly  categories  applied  by  a  thinker  to 
certain  forms  of  immediate  experience.  But  here  a  tend- 
ency, a  "transcendental  illusion/7  leads  to  an  improper 
use  of  these  principles  whereby  we  speak  of  reality  apart 
from  experience,  a  system  of  truth  and  reason  in  which 
"the  real  is  the  rational  and  the  rational  the  real" — a 
statement  which,  properly  understood,  means  experience 
and  is  true.  Under  the  influence  of  this  peculiar  tend- 
ency, particular  objects  of  our  experience  are  made  con- 


208  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

tinuous  with  each  other  and,  forgetting  that  continuity 
is  also  a  principle  of  thought,  a  world  of  truth  and  reality 
soon  appears  to  exist  apart  from  any  experiencing  subject. 
It  is  the  same  with  values.  If  we  say,  values  are  not 
lost — which  means  something  of  vital  importance,  though 
what  is  not  now  evident — we  are  in  danger  of  thinking 
of  these  values  as  some  sort  of  existence  having  spatial 
relations,  a  certain  quantum  that  accumulates  as  the  re- 
sult of  our  efforts  and  abides  through  generations,  per- 
haps forever.  Bosanquet,  for  example,  speaks  of  the 
value  of  the  whole  of  reality  existing  in  the  parts  each 
having  its  value;  Hoffding,  of  "the  conservation  of  val- 
ues," directly  suggesting  the  physical  law  of  "the  con- 
servation of  energy,"  which  again  shows  the  tendency 
to  abstract  values  from  experience  and  regard  them  as 
existences.190 

Doubtless  Hegel,  with  those  who  sympathize  with  his 
teachings,  intended  to  be  faithful  to  experience,  but  there 
seems  to  be  a  tendency,  at  least  on  the  part  of  his  follow- 
ers, to  think  of  a  system  of  reality  and  truth  apart  from 
experience,  although  I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  such 
was  Hegel's  meaning.  When  this  step  is  taken,  difficul- 
ties are  encountered,  as,  for  example,  if  the  world-whole 
is  perfect,  it  must  be  already  saved  and  the  parts  what  is 
required;  what  I  do,  even  in  my  sin,  is  precisely  what 
the  perfection  of  the  whole  enjoins  and  not  to  sin,  were 
this  possible,  would  lessen  the  divinely  perfect  work ; 
equally  what  I  do  of  good  or  evil  can  make  no  difference 
with  reality  whose  perfection  is  unalterable  (Sec.  75,  84). 
But  this  point  of  view  seems  to  cause  our  moral  life  to 
disappear,  for  we  had  thought  it  depended  upon  us 
what  we  do  and  are  and  what  consequences  of  our  deeds 
are  to  enter  into  reality  as  new  and  determining  fac- 
tors. 

89.  There  is,  then,  need  of  giving  up  abstractions  and 
recognizing,  as  Hegel  said,  that  universals  exist  only  in 
thought,  in  order  that  we  may  be  faithful  to  experience. 


MORAL  A:NT>  EELIGIOUS  REALISM  209 

Many  attempt  to  do  this  "only  again  to  become  prey  to  the 
discarded  abstraction.  Bergson  demands  in  behalf  of 
freedom  an  "open  future/'  which  would  be  closed  by  such 
an  all  inclusive  system  of  reality  as  some  would  hold. 
The  pragmatist  (and  there  are  at  least  thirteen  kinds  of 
him),191'  for  example,  protests  against  the  absolute  and 
perfect  whole  of  idealism  on  the  ground  that  experience 
is  always  of  concretes  and  partial  unities;  there  are  real 
possibilities;  the  world  may  or  may  not  be  saved;  we 
contribute  to  final  issues  which  are  not  predetermined. 
Professor  James,  however,  allows  himself  the  illustration 
of  a  game  between  an  expert  and  a  novice  who  is  at  liberty 
to  make  any  one  of  a  number  of  possible  moves,  yet  in  the 
end,  the  expert,  who  knows  all  the  plays  that  can  be  made, 
wins  the  game.  The  protest  against  the  idealist's  perfect 
world-whole  seems  insufficiently  supported,  for  the  expert 
surely  wins.192 

90.  Many  of  the  difficulties  concerning  moral  and  re- 
ligious conceptions  are  due  to  the  same  error  to  which 
Kant  referred  when  he  said:  "If  phenomena  were 
things-in-themselves,  freedom  could  not  be  saved."  It 
is  almost  impossible  to  avoid  assuming  a  world  of  real 
things,  events,  and  persons  independent  of  any  experience 
that  we  as  knowing  subjects  have.  Conscious  states  such 
as  perception  and  mediate  reasoning  are  assumed  to  be 
somehow  between  us  yet  possessed  by  us,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  these  objective  apparently  independent  existences,  on 
the  other.  When  once  we  have  taken  that  position,  what 
happens  in  us  by  way  of  knowledge,  ideals,  feelings,  and 
volitions,  is  shut  within  our  subjectivity  and  this  unex- 
perienced world  of  real  things,  persons,  events  and  values, 
even  God  Himself,  becomes  foreign,  not  only  inaccessi- 
ble but  unmodifiable  and  indifferent.  We  might,  indeed, 
like  Reid  and  other  Scotch  realists,  appeal  to  an  "imme- 
diate awareness"  or  a  "common  sense  intuition"  due  to 
the  "original  constitution"  of  the  mind,  which  is  assumed 
by  D.  C.  Mclntosh  to  be  so  attached  to  yet  other  than  the 


210  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

sensational,  perceptual,  cognitive  state  that  it  links  the 
subject  directly  with  the  extra-mental  reality.193  But 
I  think  this  is  too  easy  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty,  for  it 
leaves  the  real  still  beyond  experience  excepting  this  "im- 
mediate awareness''  or  "intuition"  which  seems  to  me  to 
be  empty  of  content,  for  it  is  by  hypothesis  other  than 
sensation,  percept,  concept  and  value  which  are  the  fac- 
tors of  the  conscious  state  and  in  which  the  variety  of  con- 
tent exists.  What,  then,  is  the  true  significance  of  this 
"immediate  awareness,"  since  it  does  not  carry  over  the 
phenomenal  within  us  to  the  supposed  independent  reals 
whether  things,  persons  or  values?  Further  discussion 
is  unnecessary  for  him  who,  like  myself,  believes  that 
Hegel  irrefutably  showed  that  the  immediate  involving  an 
intuitive  apprehension  of  reality,  and  the  mediate,  are  in- 
separably related,  which  means  that  the  self,  other  selves 
and  things  including  the  body  are  immediately  experi- 
enced as  real,  yet,  by  mediation  through  reflection,  ea,ch 
is  given  its  determinate  place  in  the  objective  unity  of 
reality  which  exists  for  the  thinking,  feeling,  willing  sub- 
ject of  the  experience  (Logic:  sees.  61-74).  It  is  even 
helpful  to  recall  Berkeley's  protest  who  says  that  he  could 
not  conceive  a  "nicer  strain  of  abstraction"  than  to  dis- 
tinguish between  things  perceived  and  their  existence 
apart  from  being  perceived  (Principles  of  Knowledge, 
Sec.  5).  Surely  we  have  no  interest  in  bare  existence 
apart  from  us  as  though  it  were  to  say:  "Here  am  I — 
the  ultimate  mysterious  Real."  How  stultifying  just  to 
sit  down  before  such  a  foreign,  indifferent  Reality  and  do 
it  reverence !  We  evidently  mean  by  this  term  something 
vitally  related  to  us — perhaps  a  permanence  of  satisfac- 
tion in  a  living  experience.  It  would  be  something  very 
helpful  if  we  could  always  remember  that  reality  is  em- 
pirical, indeed,  the  term,  reality,  is  a  category  used  by 
the  subject  in  response  to  certain  forms  of  experience; 
likewise,  permanence  through  time,  identity  in  change, 
and  also  value.  These  are  the  keys  to  the  difficulties 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS    REALISM  211 

that  arise  in  connection  with  the  contradictions  that  seem 
to  inhere  in  moral  and  religious  concepts  and  their  rela- 
tion to  reality. 

A  category  signifies  a  typical  assertion  of  a  subject 
about  specific  forms  of  experience,  and,  if  the  term,  reality, 
designates  such  a  typical  response  of  the  subject,  it  must 
mean  that  a  present  experience,  for  example,  a  perception, 
is  to  be  thought  of  and  acted  upon  as  a  real  existence  and 
related  to  other  real  objects.  Whatever  is  real  is,  there- 
fore, a  subordinate  form  of  self-conscious  experience  and 
properly  has  no  existence  elsewhere.  Kant,  however, 
treated  the  empirical  reality  of  natural  objects  as  if  unre- 
lated to  values,  a  deficiency  for  which  he  tried  to  provide 
in  his  moral  and  aesthetic  theories.  But  psychological 
analysis  shows  more  simply  that  reality,  truth  and  value 
are  empirically  united  through  the  subject's  attitude  and 
action.  In  the  moment  of  affirming  the  real,  the  subject 
has  towards  it  an  agreeable  feeling  of  satisfaction,  or,  its 
opposite,  issuing  in  the  predication  of  value  as  a  property 
possessed  by  the  real.  \7alue  may  be  called  a  category, 
in  the  sense  of  a  mode  of  response,  a  typical  assertion,  to 
be  applied  by  the  subject  to  an  objective  form  of  experi- 
ence of  which  reality  is  predicated.  Hence  every  empiri- 
cally real  existence  has  also  a  value  either  immediate,  or 
mediate  as  a  means  to  a  value  to  be  sought.194  But  the 
subject  acts  towards  real  objects  guided  by  ideas  of  their 
value,  and  the  idea  in  turn  acquires  its  truth  according 
as  the  act  in  response  to  the  real  is  successful  in  maintain- 
ing and  promoting  well-being.  Hence  the  real,  the  true, 
and  the  valuable  or  good  are  identical  and  objective  in  a 
unity  of  reality  for  the  subject,  in  that  they  are  predica- 
tions of  the  same  experience,  but  different  in  that  they  are 
the  subject's  distinguishable  responses  towards  these  spe- 
cific forms  of  experience.  Action  is  involved  in  all  these 
categories.  The  reality  of  a  stone,  for  example,  calls 
for  a  certain  type  of  actions.  The  stone  will  not  float 
in  water  but  may  be  used  for  building  docks,  and  ideas  are 


212  MOEAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

true  about  the  stone  according  as  action  under  their  guid- 
ance is  successful  in  fulfilling  the  purposes  that  ultimately 
promote  welfare.  Hence  the  real,  the  true  and  the  valu- 
able or  good  are  unified  in  the  same  object  through  the 
subject's  attitude  and  action,  and  the  object  has  its  de- 
terminate place  for  the  subject  in  a  unity  of  reality. 

If  the  empirical  nature  of  reality,  truth  and  value  or 
goodness  is  forgotten,  conflicts  arise  which  can  be  re- 
moved only  by  restoring  their  empirical  character.  For 
example,  it  is  easy  to  affirm  a  universe  of  reality  with  its 
own  laws  apart  from  experience,  a  perfect  but  closed 
system  conceived  as  material  or  spiritual  or  unknown. 
Likewise,  truth  may  be  regarded  as  an  absolute  existence 
in  an  eternal  realm.  So  may  values.  Having  substanti- 
ated these  abstractions,  there  seem  to  be  different  realms  of 
the  real,  the  true,  and  the  valuable  or  good  whose  unity 
may  be  assumed  but  cannot  be  established.  But  this 
unity  is  provided  for,  as  above  shown,  when  their  empiri- 
cal character  is  maintained.  Kant  named  the  tendency 
to  confuse  these  two  points  of  view  an  inevitable  "trans- 
cendental illusion"  which  could  be  corrected  only  by  per- 
sistent recognition  of  the  empirical  use  of  the  categories. 
It  is  still  difficult  to  avoid  this  "illusion"  by  being  strictly 
faithful  to  experience,  as  will  frequently  appear  in  what 
follows.  Conflicts  between  conceptions  of  reality  and  of 
moral  and  religious  values  can  be  overcome  only  by  prop 
erly  maintaining  their  empirical  character. 

91.  The  application  of  the  above  principles  recalls  our 
study  of  the  differentiation  of  the  unity  of  consciousness 
into  self,  things,  and  other  selves  (sec.  46).  This  analy- 
sis showed  that  things  are  perceptual  states  judged  as 
real,  referred  to  by  ideas  and  responded  to  in  action  with 
varying  feelings  of  agreeableness  or  disagreeableness  to 
which  things  owe  their  value  or  worthlessness  for  the  sub- 
ject, A  world  of  reality  and  value  is  constructed  by  the 
subject  which  becomes  increasingly  impersonal  and  even 
material  assuming  an  independent  character  as  the  experi- 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS    REALISM  213 

ences  are  repeated  in  the  subject's  adjustments  who  be- 
comes proportionately  self-conscious  and  distinct  from  the 
"external  world'7  and  its  inexorable  laws.  In  this  pro- 
cess, social  cooperation  is  important.  But  here  is  the 
parting  of  the  Ways,  one  towards  transcendental  realism, 
the  other  towards  a  consistent  recognition  of  the  empiri- 
cal character,  of  natural  objects.  We  live  in  a  world  of 
truth  about  real  things  of  such  a  character  that  we  al- 
ways expect  to  act  in  a  specific  manner  towards  them. 
But  how  easy  to  forget  the  empirical  nature  of  reality, 
truth  and  value  which  can  then  only  be  regarded  as  for- 
eign to  the  self! 

92.  With  Parmenides  and  Plato,  we  are  ready  to  say, 
"Being  Abides"  and  neither  increases,  diminishes  nor 
passes  away.  A  similar  but  more  significant  view  is  that 
of  Spinoza  who  held  that  reality,  activity  and  perfection 
are  one.  But  what  is  so  confidently  affirmed  to  be  and 
to  abide  is  only  that,  whenever  the  category  of  reality 
is  applied  to  certain  forms  of  experience,  identity  with 
permanence  is  implied  as  the  basis  for  successive  states, 
itself  abiding  as  long  as  the  experience  endures.  There 
is  nothing  therefore  to  prevent  withdrawing  the  applica- 
tion of  the  category  of  reality  or  refusing  to  apply  it  to 
these  forms  of  experience  if  they  seem  no  longer  to  require 
it.  Besides,  whatever  is  real  has  to  be  lived  through  in 
such  a  satisfying  manner  as  to  lead  to  the  judgment  that  the 
experience  is  just  then  the  real,  but  we  pass  on  to  a  new 
and  different  experience  in  which  a  new  real  is  experienced 
in  addition  to  what  was  before,  or  modifying  it,  or  existing 
with  the  old  or  taking  the  place  of  the  former  reality 
which  may  perhaps  survive  as  belief  in  the  possibility 
of  repeating  the  experience. 

It  is  the  same  with  what  is  true  for  the  truth  is  a  ver- 
itable word  made  flesh,  clothed  upon  with  the  warmth  of 
affection,  appreciation,  thought  and  will,  indeed,  it 
has  to  be  lived  through  to  be  true  which  makes  the 
truth  closely  related  to,  if  not  identical  with,  reality. 


214  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

Every  judgment  is  accompanied  by  a  certain  feeling  of 
satisfaction  in  positing  the  recognized  relation  which,  ac- 
counts, in  part  at  least,  for  the  sense  of  being  in  touch 
with  reality  through  mediate  thinking.  But  we  move 
on  to  new  experiences  which  develop  new  truths  to  modify 
or  to  add  to  or  to  replace  the  old.  Likewise  values,  which 
are  inseparable  from  these  changing  experiences. 

If  now  we  ask  that  the  true,  the  real,  and  the  good  abide 
unchangeably  the  same,  we  are  striving  to  give  expression 
to  a  deep  element  of  our  experience  but  what  we  ask  is  not 
what  we  want.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  true,  the  real  and 
the  good  are  only  concepts  referring  to  certain  experi- 
ences. If  we  were  obliged  to  repeat  these  experiences  in- 
definitely so  as  to  keep  the  true,  the  real  and  the  good  per- 
manent, habituation  would  occur  tending  to  indifference 
and  even  unconsciousness  with  the  result  of  their  disap- 
pearance. Evidently  the  longing  for  the  permanence  of 
the  true,  the  real  and  the  good  grasps  after  something  not 
expressed — perhaps  a  continuously  satisfying  experience 
which  is  equally  difficult  to  conceive.  But  the  moment 
we  try  to  represent  that  for  which  we  seek,  it  becomes  ob- 
jective, spatialized  as  Bergson  says,  a  fixed  system  of 
truth,  reality  and  value,  a  world-in-itself,  apart  from 
experience,  something  to  be  "discovered."  But  this  is 
to  become  again  victims  of  "transcendental  illusion." 

93.  The  reality  of  the  self  has  been  shown  to  con- 
sist in  fulfilling  a  definite  meaning  whereby  we  become 
individuals  distinct  from  others  who  likewise  give  expres- 
sion to  some  specific  purpose  (sec.  46).  But  these  ends 
realized  in  persons,  constituting  them  ethical,  form  a 
unity  of  meaning  embodied  in  the  social  community. 
Hence  the  real,  the  true  and  the  good  exist  in  the  form  of 
community  life.  Feelings  of  satisfaction  accompany 
the  fulfillment  of  life's  purpose  about  which  activity  is 
organized  and  character  built  up  by  transforming  duties 
into  virtues.  The  realness  and  goodness  of  the  self  are 
one,  and  admit  of  degrees,  for  it  is  an  experienced  reality 


MORAL   AND    RELIGIOUS    REALISM  215 

and  goodness,  not  a  "discovery"  as  Coe  says/95  for  there 
is  no  self  to  be  discovered  but  only  to  be  experienced — 
it  is  an  application  of  the  categories  of  reality  and  value, 
or  an  awakening,  to  certain  forms  of  satisfying  experi- 
ence. Such  a  self  is  possible  only  in  relation  to  the  ob- 
jective but  empirical  world  of  things,  events  and  other 
selves  which  in  their  turn  are  of  different  degrees  of  real- 
ness  and  worth  to  the  subject  experiencing  them.  If 
now  there  are  reasons  as  I  think  there  are,  for  believing 
in  an  all-embracing  Self  dwelling  in  us,  our  own  real- 
ities and  values  are  not  copies  of  but  identical  with  those 
of  the  divine  experience.  This  identity  does  not  mean, 
of  course,  that  what  is  real  and  valuable  to  us  is  fully 
known  and  appreciated  by  us,  for  it  has  a  far  wider  sig- 
nificance and  worth  than  we  apprehend,  in  that  larger  Self 
in  whose  life  ours  is  embraced. 

To  show  the  grounds  of  this  affirmation  would  lead  be- 
yond the  scope  of  my  present  purpose.  It  is  sufficient 
to  indicate  the  lines  of  thought  that  might  be  followed. 
The  idealist,  for  example,  interprets  the  world-process 
including  our  life  as  the  objective  realization  of  the  abso- 
lute Mind  and  Will  through  finite  existences  each  of  which 
embodies  some  form  of  the  divine  meaning.  The  inter- 
pretation of  the  unity  of  reality,  truth  an.d  goodness 
in  human  and  divine  experience  gives  fresh  significance  to 
Plato's  Idea  of  the  Good  as  the  supreme  reality,  to 
Leibnitz's  conception  of  the  world  as  the  best  possible  be- 
cause most  satisfying  to  the  Creator,196  to  Lotze's  attempt 
to  ground  metaphysics  in  ethics,197  and  to  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  kingdom  of  God  as  the  ultimately  real,  the 
abiding  truth  and  good.  Fichte  seems  to  have  had  a  simi- 
lar idea  in  relating  the  sensuous  forms  of  experience  to 
moral  duty  and  goodness  and  identifying  the  human  with 
the  divine  experience. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  universe  is  the  objective 
expression  of  the  divine  Being,  but  this  expression  is 
often  regarded  as  impersonal  spatial  existence.  When 


216  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

this  step  is  taken,  the  world  of  things,  events  and  persons, 
seems  fixed,  as  a  closed  system  with  changeless  laws.  It 
is  against  this  view  that  Bergson  protests,  and  returns 
from  without  inward  to  the  subjective  enduring  self  in 
whose  immediate  experience,  there  is  an  identity  with  the 
supreme  Life  in  and  through  all.  Bergson's  view  sug- 
gests, I  think,  Spinoza's  conception  of  finite  minds  as 
modes  of  the  thought-attribute  of  the  one  Substance  form- 
ing an  infinite  world  of  consciousness,  but  Bergson,  like 
Spinoza,  seems  to  lose  the  reality  of  the  ethical  person 
in  mystical  union  with  the  Absolute.  We  may,  I  be- 
lieve, heed  Bergson's  message  not  to  become  the  victims 
of  an  abstract  spatialized  truth,  reality,  and  goodness,  yet 
remember,  as  he  does  not  seem  to  do,  that  we  are  as  long 
as  we  are  at  all  just  this  subject-object  experience  of  the 
real,  the  true  and  the  good  with  space  and  time  relations, 
and  that  in  our  living  duration  we  are  merged  in  the 
supreme  Life-Source  preserving  our  self-identity  as  per- 
sons in  ethical  union  with  the  Divine  Personality.  An- 
other lesson  to  be  learned  from  Bergson  is  that  this  living 
enduring  union  cannot  be  described  in  pictorial  spatial 
terms  and  yet  it  is  the  deepest  truth  of  life — indeed,  life 
itself. 

It  is  important  to  emphasize  the  empirical  character  of 
the  realm  in  which  our  ambitions  and  efforts  of  will  turn 
upon  temporally  fixed  points  of  value,  reality  and  truth, 
leading  to  still  further  but  enriched  and  more  complicated 
experiences.  Plato  and  Aristotle  suggested  that  the  Ideas 
existing  in  themselves,  energize,  realize  themselves  in  the 
world  of  nature  and  spirit,  198  but  now  we  regard  these 
ideas  as  related  to  ourselves  as  subjects  who  gradually  ren- 
der them  more  definite  as  ends  by  which  we  guide  activity 
and  experience  their  fulfillment  as  reality  which  in  its  turn 
develops.  The  empirical  reality  of  time  is  also  implied 
in  this  realization  of  ends,  a  point  which  Bergson  does  not 
seem  to  grant  (sec.  57).  Sometimes  we  turn  from  our 
work  with  a  sense  of  its  unreality,  showing  that  reality 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS    REALISM  217 

is  a  form  of  living,  appreciating  experience.  In  the  mo- 
ment of  experiencing  anything  real,  each  is  able  to  say: 
"This  now  is  real  and  no  sham.  I  am  now  living  through 
the  real,  true,  and  valuable  beyond  which  I  do  not  need 
to  look/'  It  is  well  to  notice,  however,  that  this  satis- 
faction is  never  such  as  to  quench  the  conative  impulse 
to  further  activity  towards  a  more  abundant  life.  This 
ever  present  conative  impulse  has  much  to  do  with  the  psy- 
chological origin  of  the  belief  in  something  beyond  im- 
mediate experience  which  is  variously  interpreted  as  some 
sort  of  superior  and  fixed  reality  ultimately  identified 
with  the  supreme  Being  yet  inclusive  of  our  own  present 
experience. 

94.  Applying  the  above  conceptions  to  the  moral 
sphere,  I  now  perceive  that  I  am  constantly  producing  or 
hindering,  even  lessening,  my  own  reality  as  a  person  ac- 
cording to  what  I  do.  Wrong-doing  now  means  such 
acts  that  I  experience  dissatisfaction,  disappointment  and 
a  sense  of  revulsion  against  their  nothingness  which  caused 
the  Preacher  to  say:  "All  is  vanity."  Nor  is  this  a  trifling 
view  of  sin  and  evil.  An  act  is  not  wrong,  even  sinful,  to 
myself,  except  as  I  have  towards  my  deeds  a  humiliating 
sense  of  their  utter  vanity  and  nothingness.  Sin  and  evil 
are  not  existences  apart  from  acting  subjects ;  if  they  were, 
they  with  their  consequences  could  not  be  eradicated  by 
any  power  human  or  divine.  Instead,  my  revulsion  to- 
wards my  acts  is  revulsion  towards  myself  as  moving  in 
a  direction  that  causes  retraction  and  loss  of  the 
power  of  the  self.  But  my  good  deed  means  that  I  ex- 
perience in  my  acting  a  sense  of  realness,  expansion  and 
promotion  of  power.  This  shows  how  the  good  may  elim- 
inate the  evil  and  its  consequences,  since  to  do  the 
right  and  good  is  to  get  away  from  the  abyss  of 
nothingness,  that  is,  away  from  the  disappointing,  inhibit- 
ing condition  of  myself  which  is  experienced  as  the  false, 
the  evil  and  the  unreal,  to  that  growing,  larger  self  whose 
experience  in  the  moment  of  acting  is  satisfying,  giving 


218  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

a  sense  of  realness  and  growth.  Such  is  the  good  act 
which  overcomes  the  had.  Such  acts  make  a  difference  in 
the  reality  of  the  self  and  the  more  such  deeds  there  are, 
the  more  reality  does  one  gain  in  their  doing  and  the  more 
certainly  are  evil  and  its  consequences  eliminated  and 
swallowed  up  in  reality. 

95.  Pragmatism  merits  approval  for  its  effort  to  be 
faithful  to  experience.  But  Professor  James  seems  to 
affirm  reality  apart  from  experience  but  somehow  includ- 
ing persons,  a  "reality  pursuing  its  adventures'7  and  pro- 
ducing the  new,  a  world  that  may  or  may  not  be  saved. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  show  how  such  a  reality  could  be 
brought  into  relation  to  the  knowing  mind,  but  we  are  al- 
ready relieved  from  the  need  of  trying  to  do  this,  for,  as 
we  have  seen,  we  would  be  looking  for  reality  where  it 
cannot  be  found.  Faithfulness  to  the  actual  experience 
of  the  true,  the  real,  and  the  good  reveals  the  supposed  for- 
eign realm  of  reality  as  only  a  network  of  abstractions 
which  disappears  when  we  recognize  that  the  only  reality 
we  know  is  within  experience  and  that  certain  forms  of  ex- 
perience are  characterized  by  such  unique  feelings  of  sat- 
isfaction that  we  judge  them  to  be  realities,  more  or  less 
permanent,  in  view  of  which  we  act  and  whose  realness 
may  even  be  modified  by  our  action.  Concepts  developed 
in  connection  with  perceptions  introduce  new  points  of  in- 
terest and  value  into  experience  and  form  a  system  of 
ideas  whose  truth  depends  upon  their  functioning  help- 
fully as  guides  in  action  and  which  may  be  made  an  ob- 
ject of  profitable  reflection  and  study.199 

If,  however,  a  world  of  reality  with  inexorable  laws  is 
assumed  distinct  from  ourselves,  it  becomes  impossible, 
for  us  at  least,  to  make  any  change  or  to  contribute  any- 
thing to  issues  in  this  foreign  realm  however  earnest  our 
efforts.  But,  from  the  empirical  point  of  view,  there 
is  abundant  opportunity  for  reality  to  begin,  develop  and 
even  pass  away  yielding  to  new  realities  and  for  moral 
acts  to  make  vital  differences  and  to  determine  issues 


MORAL    AND    RELIGIOUS    REALISM  219 

in  our  empirical  world  whose  moral  salvation  can  only 
consist  in  reaching  a  satisfying  form  of  experience  which 
will  maintain  and  fulfill  the  reality  and  worth  of  the  self. 

96.  The  contradiction  which  seemed  to  inhere  in  the 
concept  of  salvation  is  now  overcome  by  the  empirical  char- 
acter of  the  reality  and  worth  of  the  self  (sec.  93).  Sal- 
vation seemed  to  imply  a  standard  into  harmony  with 
which  the  self  must  be  finally  brought  if  saved,  and  if  not 
saved,  then  the  standard  would  be  too  impotent  to  be  car- 
ried out,  reality  being  what  it  is.  But,  if  the  standard  can- 
not be  realized,  then  it  is  false  and  the  concept  of  salvation 
contradictory ;  if  the  standard  is  valid,  however  short  one 
falls,  one  can  and  shall  ultimately  fulfill  what  belongs 
to  his  personality  to  be  and  so  the  concept  of  salvation  is 
unnecessary  and  inapplicable. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  psychological  nature  of  stand- 
ards or  ideals  in  the  moral  life  affords  the  solution  of  a 
serious  problem.  We  have  seen  (sec.  60)  that  an  ideal  or 
standard  in  harmony  with  which  we  are  to  be  brought,  if 
ever  redeemed,  is  only  like  a  light  which  we  bear  with  us 
to  show  the  way  forward  in  the  path  we  are  to  take.  The 
brighter  the  light  the  plainer  the  way.  But  it  belongs 
to  an  ideal  to  be  vague  and  in  this  sense,  the  achieved  self- 
hood has  advantage  over  the  ideal-self  which  does  not 
exist,  never  can  exist,  and  is  meagrely  conceived,  till  lived 
out  and  thus  defined  in  actual,  definite  achievement.  Then 
we  know  what  this  ideal  means  as  never  before.  Hence 
we  may  properly  have  joy  in  our  achieved  self-hood  with 
a  happy  anticipation  of  a  larger  and  richer  experience  to 
be  gained  by  guiding  our  activity  by  the  light  of  the  ideal 
we  bear.  The  supposed  contradiction  in  the  concept  of 
salvation  was  due  to  failure  to  recognize  the  empirical  na- 
ture of  standards  of  conduct  and  their  functional  signifi- 
cance as  guides  to  achievements  by  which  the  vague  ideal 
is  not  only  rendered  definite  but  transformed  into  reality 
by  being  embodied  in  personal  experience  through  deeds 
of  will, 


220  MOEAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

97.  The  discussion  thus  far  has  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  self-hood  consists  in  empirically  realizing  a  defin- 
ite end.  If  so,  this  end  or  ideal  is  personal  and  each  has 
his  own  norm  or  moral  law.  There  can,  therefore,  be  no 
universal  moral  law  any  more  than  there  can  be  a  general 
self.  If  personality  consists  in .  fulfilling  some  unique 
end,  these  ends  are  different  from  one  another  and  all 
that  is  required  is  that  each  work  out  his  own  life-mean- 
ing. There  is  no  universal  moral  law  like  a  straight 
line  with  which  all  must  agree,  for  this  would  destroy 
individuality.  There  is,  however,  something  which  may, 
perhaps,  be  called  a  universal  common  to  individuals, 
for  every  meaning  or  end  depends  upon  other  meanings 
just  as  any  sentence  implies  the  whole  discourse.  The  one 
implies  and  affirms  while  it  negates  the  many.  In  like 
manner,  to  strive  to  fulfill  the  meaning  of  my  life  is  to 
seek  the  supreme  meaning  of  reality  which  as  a  meaning 
can  be  understood  only  as  embodied  in  the  Divine  Life. 
Thus  I  seek  God  in  seeking  myself.  I  am  partial  and, 
indeed,  fragmentary,  yet  my  individuality  is  also  infinite 
and  divine  as  is  every  other.  From  this  point  of  view, 
there  is  a  supreme  end  or  law,  even  the  mind  and  will 
of  God,  which  each  individual  is  not  only  under  obliga- 
tion to  seek  but  does  seek  in  all  that  is  done.  My  com- 
plete self  is  in  God  and  to  seek  myself  is  to  seek  God. 

An  apology  needs  to  be  made  for  attempting  to  illus- 
trate ultimate  relations  since  the  illustrations  depend 
upon  these  relations.  However  let  us  think,  for  example, 
of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  whose  individuality  consists  in 
expressing  a  definite  meaning  to  which  all  that  he  does 
is  subordinated  and  by  which  he  is  distinguished  from 
others.  To  himself,  Hamlet  is  a  very  definite  person 
with  unique  experiences,  but  he  feels  that  he  has  a  larger 
self  before  which  he  stands  in  awe  and  which  he  seeks, 
impelled  to  act  out  what  he  feels  he  ought  to  be,  if  he 
is  really  to  be  at  all.  This  is  the  voice  of  conscience, 
with  its  forecasting  idea  of  the  larger  self  and  its  feeling 


MORAL    AND    RELIGIOUS    REALISM  221 

of  obligation  to  realize  it.  But  Hamlet  sees  in  part  only ; 
the  rest  of  himself  is  a  more  or  less  clearly  apprehended 
ideal  which  constitutes  the  norm  of  his  life.  But  Ham- 
let would  not  be  Hamlet  if  there  were  not  others,  particu- 
larly Ophelia,  whom  his  individuality  both  affirms  and 
excludes.  But  the  complete  Hamlet  is  what  he  is  to 
Shakespeare  who  experiences  the  significance  of  all  the 
characters  in  their  unity.  But  this  complete  Hamlet  is 
a  consistent,  even  beautiful,  whole,  which  the  striving, 
loving,  desponding  individual  of  the  passing  hour  does 
not,  in  fact,  never  can  know  as  he  is  known.200 

The  same  truth  was  expressed  by  Aristotle  when  he 
said  that  a  hand  severed  from  the  body  is  not  a  hand. 
Its  individuality  affirms  the  whole  organism  while  it  ex- 
cludes other  members  of  the  body.201'  In  like  manner, 
St.  Paul  spoke  of  the  believer  as  a  member  of  the  body 
of  Christ,  each  of  whose  organs  has  its  special  function 
which  requires  the  functioning  of  the  other  organs,  but,  in 
its  action,  it  seeks,  not  only  its  own  good  but  that  of 
the  whole  body.  If  one  member  suffer,  all  suffer.  Like- 
wise, every  believer  has,  as  his  supreme  end,  to  seek  his 
own  self-hood  by  fulfilling  his  own  law  of  life  and  by 
doing  his  own  duties  which  are  distinct  from,  yet  imply, 
the  duties  of  others;  but  to  do  this  is  to  affirm  and  to 
seek  the  body  of  Christ,  even  Christ  Himself.  The  same 
truth  is  found  in  the  familiar  words:  "Seek  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,"  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God 
.  .  .  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself"  (Mat.  22:  37-38). 

98.  The  belief  that  there  must  be  another  life  which 
shall  supplement  and  complete  what  is  so  imperfectly 
done  here  finds  confirmation  in  the  views  above  presented 
concerning  the  fulfillment  of  the  moral  ideal,  indeed,  the 
argument  leads  directly  to  the  hope  of  immortality.  Since 
the  ideal  moral  self  is  realized  not  in  any  temporal  act 
but  in  the  whole  series  of  experiences  of  personality,  and 
since  the  end,  in  whose  fulfillment  the  reality  of  the  self 
consists,  forms  part  of  the  kingdom  of  ends  which  may 


222  MOEAL    LIFE    AND    EELIGION 

be  identified  with  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  divinely 
experienced  meaning  of  reality,  the  hope  of  immortality 
seems  to  be  well  grounded.  This  is  the  significance  of 
Kant's  postulate  of  immortality  as  the  condition  of  the 
fulfillment  of  the  moral  law,  of  Green's  belief  that  the 
moral  ideal  is  "forever  striving  to  realize  itself"  which  is 
inconsistent  with  the  extinction  of  the  personal  medium 
in  which  it  has  its  realization,202  and  of  Royce's  convic- 
tion that  no  one  will  ever  at  any  moment  of  time  be  able 
to  say:  "There  is  no  more  for  me  to  accomplish;  my 
work  is  done;  I  may  rest  forever."  Indeed,  "the  indi- 
vidual is  real  but  under  our  finite  conditions  of  dissatis- 
fied longing,  the  individual  is  never  found."  "We  are 
never  without  something  to  do  for  God  and  fellow-men. 
A  consciously  last  moral  task  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
For,  whenever  I  act,  I  create  a  new  situation  in  the 
world's  life,  a  situation  that  never  before  was,  and  that 
never  can  recur.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  moral  law  to 
demand,  however,  that  whenever  a  new  deed  of  service 
is  possible,  I  should  undertake  to  do  it.  But  a  new  deed 
is  possible  whenever  my  world  is  in  a  new  situation. 
My  moral  tasks  spring  afresh  into  life  whenever  I  seek  to 
terminate  it.  To  serve  God  is  to  create  new  opportunities 
for  service.  My  human  form  of  consciousness  is  indeed 
doubtless  a  transient  incident  of  my  immortal  life.  Not 
thus  haltingly,  not  thus  blindly,  not  thus  darkly  and  ig- 
norantly,  shall  I  always  labor.  But  the  service  of  the 
eternal  is  an  essentially  endless  service.  There  can  be 
no  last  moral  act."  203  Nor  can  the  believer  think  of 
himself  a.s  a  member  of  the  body  of  Christ  without  iden- 
tifying the  permanence  of  his  existence  with  that  of 
Christ  in  what  is  yet  to  be,  and  some  would  even  say, 
in  what  has  been. 

99.  Just  as  natural  objects  are  empirically  real  and 
valuable,  so  are  the  objects  of  faith.  At  least,  the  starting 
point  of  their  discussion  should  be  what  these  objects 
are  within  our  experience.  The  least  that  we  should  say 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS    REALISM  223 

is  that  the  natural  and  spiritual  worlds,  meaning  by 
spiritual  the  moral  and  religious,  are  distinguishable 
but  not  finally  separable  aspects  of  experience,  forbidding 
us  to  affirm  an  ultimate  Reality  or  Power  inaccessible 
to  our  knowledge.  We  have  seen  how  natural  objects 
and  the  ethical  reality  of  the  self  develop  through  reflec- 
tion, evaluation  and  action  of  the  subject.  In  like  man- 
ner have  the  reality  and  worth  of  the  objects  of  religious 
faith  developed  for  our  thought  and  belief  into  a  spiritual 
world.  Just  as  a  tendency  to  forget  that  natural  objects 
are  empirically  real  causes  us  to  regard  them  as  forming 
a  closed  system  of  material  objects  with  inexorable  laws 
apart  from  us,  so  do  we  tend  to  forget  the  empirical 
character  of  the  objects  of  religious  faith  which  in  turn 
are  regarded  as  a  world  apart.  Just  as  the  assumed  ex- 
ternal, non-empirical  natural  world  with  its  fixed  laws  is 
inaccessible  to  and  unchangeable  by  us,  so  does  this  realm 
of  religious  objects  and  values  become  a  world,  far  re- 
moved beyond  the  "island  of  experience,"  to  which  man- 
kind longingly  looks  for  some  message  out  of  the  gloom 
and  thick  darkness.  When  the  revelation  comes  in  an- 
swer to  human  needs  and  desires,  suggesting  that  the 
desires  create  the  mystic  words  of  light  and  truth,  the 
historical  religions  arise  and  are  regarded  as  supernat- 
ural. Once  started  on  this  course,  no  obstacle  is  encoun- 
tered because  it  is  beyond  our  empirical  truth  and  reality. 
From  this  point  of  view  a  few  words  may  be  said 
concerning  Christianity.  It  will  suffice  to  mention  the 
concepts  of  God,  the  Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  of  man  as 
a  free  moral  agent,  sinful  but  to  be  redeemed  through 
faith  in  the  saving  work  of  Christ.  But  what  do  these 
and  other  familiar  conceptions  of  the  Christian  faith 
mean?  There  are  two  ways  of  regarding  them.  One 
abstracts  the  objects  of  these  conceptions  from  experience. 
Then  there  appears  a  realm  whose  laws  are  the  commands 
of  the  supreme  Lawgiver.  A  heaven  and  hell,  a  kingdom 
of  God  and  a  kingdom  of  Satan,  Life  and  Death,  are 


224  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

set  before  every  man.  Through  faith  in  the  redemptive 
work  of  Christ  sinners  are  enabled  to  become  children 
of  God  by  appropriating  the  excess  of  merit  won  by 
Christ  and  placed  at  their  disposal  to  equate  their  sin 
and  thus  justify  God  in  their  forgiveness  and  acceptance. 
Otherwise  their  most  earnest  efforts  avail  nothing,  for  the 
laws  of  the  spiritual  world  are  unchangeable,  and  man 
stands  helpless  at  the  closed  gate  of  heaven.  There  seems 
to  be  an  unutterable  mystery  in  Christ's  overcoming  the 
consequences  of  sin  and  procuring  human  redemption. 
For  centuries,  the  religious  thinker  has  marveled  at  this 
mystery  and  tried  to  explain  how  Christ  redeems,  only  to 
awaken  afresh  to  his  limitations.  It  is  evident  that  this 
mode  of  thought  moves  in  a  realm  of  abstractions  where 
the  objects  of  faith  are  transformed  into  metaphysical 
realities. 

The  other  way  of  treating  the  objects  of  Christian 
faith  is  empirical.  It  deals  with  immediate  personal  ex- 
perience and  seeks  to  determine  in  what  the  reality  and 
worth,  for  example,  of  Christ,  consists  for  the  one  who 
believes  in  Him.  Just  as  the  subject  applies  to  certain 
forms  of  experience,  for  example,  a  perception,  the  cate- 
gory of  reality  and  responds  with  agreeable  or  disagree- 
able feelings  which  lead  to  the  predication  of  value  and  to 
action  according  to  this  reality  and  value,  so  does  the 
subject  apply  the  categories,  that  is,  the  judgments,  of 
reality  and  value  to  certain  forms  of  religious  experience 
and  acts  towards  these  objects  of  faith  so  as  to  promote 
well-being.  The  reality,  value,  and  act,  presuppose  the 
conative  impulse  to  life  everywhere  present  in  human  ex- 
perience. Just  as  ideas  are  true  concerning  natural  ob- 
jects only  as  they  are  valid  guides  in  adjusting  activity 
to  these  realities  and  values  so  as  to  lead  to  further  satis- 
fying experiences,  so  the  ideas  of  the  reality  and  worth, 
for  example,  of  Christ,  are  true  according  as  they  may 
be  successfully  used  in  the  conduct  of  life  in  its  complex 
social  relations.  Ideas  concerning  the  objects  of  faith, 


MORAL    AND    RELIGIOUS    REALISM  225 

therefore,  become  unified  with  other  truths,  since  all  ideas 
concerning  both  natural  and  religious  objects  are  alike 
validated  through  successful  application  in  experience. 
Hence  the  empirical  reality  and  value  of  Christ  and  the 
Other  objects  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  believer  knows 
nothing  about  a  non-empirical  Christ  in  a  remote  super- 
natural realm  any  more  than  he  knows  of  Kant's  nou- 
menal  thing-in-itself,  but,  just  as  Hegel  said  that  the 
common  mind  was  right  as  against  Kant's  "divorce  be- 
tween thought  and  thing  ...  in  the  firm  belief  that 
thought  coincides  with  thing"  whereby  we  do  know  real- 
ity (Logic:  sec.  22),  so  is  the  believer  able  to  know  the 
objectively  real  Christ  and  the  truth  known  accords  with 
what  He  is.  The  same  is  true  of  the  reality  and  knowl- 
edge of  God.  It  is  a  "social  immediacy,"  to  use  Coe's 
terms  but  with  a  fuller  recognition  of  Hegel's  treatment 
of  the  categories  immediate  and  mediate  (Logic:  sees.  61- 
71) — a  "social  immediacy,"  in  which  we  know  our  own 
reality  as  conjunct  with  that  of  other  selves  and  with 
Christ  and  God,  and  mediate  in  that  we  know  all  in  a 
social  unity.  And  when  we  immediately  apprehend  the 
being  of  God  as  supreme  Lord  of  all,  it  is  the  religious 
way  of  experiencing  the  "notion"  as  the  divine  self-con- 
scious Spirit  indwelling  and  active  in  finite  personalities. 
Analysis  of  experience  confirms  the  above  conclusion, 
but  emphasizes  the  functional  character  of  ideas  in  rela- 
tion to  activity.  Hence,  instead  of  trying  to  reach,  for 
example,  a  remote  Christ  only  to  have  a  helpless  sense  of 
mystery,  Christ  is  to  us  real  and  we  do  know  Him  and 
His  truth  and  the  more  we  act  out  our  belief  in  our 
objects  of  faith,  the  more  true  and  functionally  important 
do  our  ideas  about  them  become.  This  view  throws  light 
upon  the  province  of  theology  which  now  becomes  the 
systematization  of  religious  ideas  validated  by  their  func- 
tionally useful  guidance  of  conduct  whereby  life  is  con- 
served and  fulfilled.  If  it  is  said  that  this  is  subjectivism 
to  be  corrected  by  the  "immediate  awareness"  of  objective 


226  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

reality  and  by  the  "historicity  of  Christianity  and  of 
Christ/'  let  the  objector  state  the  content  of  this  "imme- 
diate awareness"  of  objective  reality  in  terms  of  experi- 
ence (sec.  90)  and  show  what  is  meant  by  this  "histori- 
city" more  than  the  functioning  of  personal  wills  guided 
by  ideas  of  values,  validating  themselves  in  experience, 
whose  identity  throughout  the  ages  amidst  their  differ- 
ences of  expression,  it  is  the  aim  of  historical  research 
to  make  clear  in  an  orderly  connection.  Christianity  is 
thus  a  temporal  and  an  eternal  religion,  temporal  in  that 
its  ideas  of  the  value  and  significance  of  life  have  been 
and  are  being  lived  out  in  successive  generations,  eternal 
in  that  the  same  ideas  are  applicable  to  any  age,  and  uni- 
versal because  capable  of  being  appropriated  by  all 
people. 

100.  It  is  necessary  again  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 
there  can  be  no  final  separation  between  the  reality,  truth 
and  value  of  the  objects  of  nature  and  those  of  religious 
faith.  The  natural  and  spiritual  realms  are  distinguish- 
able but  inseparable  aspects  of  the  unity  of  experience. 
No  more  need  be  said,  were  it  not  for  the  inevitable 
"transcendental  illusion"  already  referred  to  which  ab- 
stracts the  objective  aspects  of  experience  from  the  sub- 
jective and  constructs  the  content  of  each  into  two  worlds, 
the  natural  and  the  supernatural  both  with  distinctive 
laws.  Then  difficulties  arise  which  no  intellectual  skill 
can  overcome.  Ritschl,  for  example,  makes  such  an  ab- 
straction with  the  result  that  scientific  truths  of  nature 
seem  to  be  unrelated  to  those  of  morals  and  religion. 
Influenced  by  Kant's  distinction  between  noumena  and 
phenomena,  he  is  the  victim  of  things-in-themselves  both 
natural  and  spiritual,  and,  in  order  to  bridge  the  chasm 
between  them,  he  resorts  to  Lotze's  theory  "that  in  the 
phenomena  which  in  a  definite  space  exhibit  changes  to  a 
limited  extent  and  in  a  determinate  order,  we  cognize 
the  thing  as  the  cause  of  its  qualities  operating  upon  us, 
as  the  end  which  there  serves  as  means,  as  the  law  of 


MORAL   AND   RELIGIOUS    REALISM  227 

their  constant  changes."  This  is  to  say,  there  is  no  sepa- 
ration between  the  cause  and  the  effect  which  we  experi- 
ence in  our  response  to  that  which  operates  upon  us, 
but  our  response  is  not  the  cause,  nor  is  it  necessarily  like 
the  cause.  Hence,  only  to  the  extent  that  it  is  directly 
experienced  in  our  conscious  states  do  we  know  the  nature 
and  being  of  whatever  acts  upon  us,  be  it  things,  persons, 
or  God.  The  sum-total  of  conscious  states  capable  of 
being  objectified  is  now  differentiated  into  the  natural 
and  supernatural  worlds  by  means  of  the  principle  of 
"value-judgments"  which  is  the  soul's  response  to  the  ob- 
jects of  knowledge,  that  is,  to  objective  states  of  conscious- 
ness, in  pleasurable  or  unpleasurable  feelings  according  as 
the  experience  of  these  objects  tends  to  promote  or  hinder 
the  life  of  the  subject. 

These  "value- judgments"  are  of  two  kinds,  "concomit- 
ant" which  refers  to  what  is,  and  "independent,"  to  what 
ought  to  be,  that  is,  to  moral  and  religious  ideals.  But 
there  seems  to  be  no  rationally  discoverable  principle  of 
unity  between  these  two  orders  of  experience,  the  worlds 
of  fact  and  of  the  ideal,  of  nature  and  of  spirit.  It  has 
always  been  the  function  of  religion  to  mediate  between 
these  two  realms,  and  Christianity,  the  highest  of  the  reli- 
gions, does  this,  Eitschl  believes,  through  the  revelation 
of  Christ  to  whom  we  respond  with  such  unique  feelings 
of  His  worth  in  our  effort  to  realize  the  highest  ends  of 
life  in  the  world  as  it  is,  that  we  are  assured  of  His  real- 
ity and  of  the  truth  of  His  revelation.  Thus  in  Christ 
and  His  redemptive  work  are  the  natural  and  spiritual 
world  finally  unified.204 

Ritschl's  skilful  method  fails  to  overcome  the  difficul- 
ties that  arise  when  we  abstract  the  objective  from  the 
subjective  and  both  from  the  unity  of  experience  with  the 
result  that  we  seem  to  have  two  foreign  worlds  of  things- 
in-themselves  separately  existing,  the  natural  and  super- 
natural or  spiritual.  But,  since  the  abstraction  is  so 
plainly  opposed  to  the  facts  of  experience,  it  may  be  left 


228  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

to  itself,  while  a  word  may  be  said  of  Hitachi's  use  of 
Lotze's  principle  of  cause  and  effect  so  fundamental  to 
Lotze's  system.  It  is  vital  to  the  whole  Ritschlian  the- 
ology. This  principle  Lotze  explains  in  harmony  with 
Jiis  monistic  theory  whereby  two  things,  in  this  case  the 
soul  and  whatever  acts  upon  it,  are  finally  modes  of  the 
World-Ground  so  that  the  changes  produced  by  the  cause, 
C,  acting  upon  the  soul,  E,  are  found  to  be  immanent  sim- 
ultaneous changes  in  the  World-Ground,  M,  that  is,  the 
acting  cause  and  the  responding  soul  are  direct  modes  of 
God  and  His  immanent  action  in  view  of  which  things 
and  souls,  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  are,  indeed, 
relatively  different  but  are  finally  processes  within  the  di- 
vine Life.  Such  is  the  significance  of  Lotze's  argument 
which  seems  to  become  something  different  when  appro- 
priated by  Ritschl  who  abstracts  subject  and  object  from 
the  unity  of  personal  experience  thus  creating  two  worlds 
with  a  chasm  between  them  which  he  seeks  to  bridge  by 
an  elaborate  metaphysical  theory  of  the  causal  relation — 
a  theory  by  the  way  which  does  not  do  what  it  is  intended 
to  accomplish,  either  for  Lotze  or  Ritschl  who  are  both  to 
be  criticized  for  misusing  the  causal  relation  whose  prop- 
or  sphere  is  within  experience.  The  "natural"  and  "spi- 
ritual" and  their  truth,  reality,  and  value  belong,  there- 
fore, in  the  unity  of  experience  and  are  indissolubly 
united  through  action  in  adjustment  to  the  complex  rela- 
tions which  every  one  sustains  in  order  to  conserve  and 
promote  well-being. 

There  is  now  evident  a  truth  of  much  practical  im- 
portance expressible  in  language  suggesting,  but  different 
from,  that  of  the  mystic:  each  may  say,  "I  do  know 
the  real  nature  of  things,  of  God  and  of  Christ,  though 
not  exhaustively.  My  life  is  in  God  and  God  is  in  me, 
yet  I  am  really  just  what  I  know  myself  to  be,  though 
my  being  may  be  larger  and  of  greater  value  than  I  am 
able  to  comprehend  and  so  may  that  of  other  selves  and 
of  the  world  of  things.  If,  for  me,  Christ  is  supreme,  I 


MORAL   AND    RELIGIOUS    REALISM 

may  also  say,  both  with  truth  and  devotion,  all  things  are 
mine  and  I  am  Christ's  and  Christ  is  God's"  (I  Cor:  3: 
22,  23).  This  surely  is  the  more  excellent  way  for  daily 
life  and  faith  as  well  as  for  speculative  thought  to  pur- 
sue, if  they  are  faithful  to  experience. 

101.  As  there  is  a  tendency  to  abstract  reality  from 
experience,  so  is  there  to  view  reality  as  unchangeably 
permanent.  Religious  faith  likewise  tends  to  abstract  its 
objects  of  belief  from  experience  and  to  regard  them  as 
eternally  the  same.  "Jesus  Christ  is  the  same  yesterday 
and  to-day;  yea  and  forever"  (lieb.  13:  8).  But  what 
more  is  meant  than  that  these  objects  of  belief  cannot  be 
thought  as  real  without  also  affirming  their  perma- 
nence or  duration  through  time?  There  is  nothing,  how- 
ever, to  prevent  ceasing  to  regard  these  objects  of  reli- 
gious experience  as  real  if  they  no  longer  seem  to  require 
such  a  judgment  on  the  part  of  the  experiencing  subject 
any  more  than  there  is  in  the  case  of  the  objects  of  nature 
(sec.  9),  but,  if  they  do  require  such  a  judgment  the 
greater  their  significance  for  the  welfare  of  life  it- 
self. 

Because  the  objects  of  religious  experience  are  empiri- 
cally real,  they  may  change  through  new  and  different 
experiences  in  which  a  new  real  is  found  or  some  modifica- 
tion of  what  was  before  occurs.  The  steadfast  permanence 
of  an  object  of  faith  is,  therefore,  due  to  a  uniformity  of 
satisfying  experiences  which  enables  the  subject  to  act 
towards  and  think  of  the  object  of  belief  in  the  same  man- 
ner. In  this  sense  we  may  say :  God  is  more  real  to  me 
to-day  than  yesterday;  even  our  prayers  may  modify  for 
us  the  very  being  of  God  and  the  world  over  which  he 
rules.  Hence  God's  reality  changes  for  us,  but  the  change 
is  that  which  is  implied  in  our  progress  towards  a  con- 
stant end.  Thus  God  is  the  beginning  and  goal  of  our 
life.  Our  experience  of  Him  is  in  time  and  so  is  the 
reality  we  assign  Him.  His  reality  becomes  greater  and 
richer  as  our  experience  develops  and  the  deeper  the  ex- 


230  MORAL    LIFE   AND   RELIGION 

perience,  the  more  wonderfully  do  His  reality  and  im- 
mediateness  seem  to  exceed  understanding. 

This  is  directly  in  harmony  with  experience,  for,  every- 
where in  the  natural  and  spiritual  worlds,  the  intellect 
goes  only  a  little  way  halting  before  a  mystery  that  pass- 
eth  knowledge,  but  becomes  clearer  as  experience  grows. 
Consequently,  it  is  imposible  to  affirm  the  reality  and 
worth  of  God,  the  Father,  Son  and  Spirit  without  also 
believing  in  their  unchangeable  permanence,  while  at  the 
same  time  one  is  filled  with  the  sense  of  the  unsearchable* 
depths  of  the  divine  nature  as,  in  mystic  fashion,  one  ex- 
periences union  with  Christ  and  God  the  Father.  But 
here  thought  is  turned  from  without  into  the  secret  cham- 
bers of  the  heart  of  the  believer  in  whom,  as  in  all  things, 
the  Fountain  of  Creative  Life  springs  up,  for  ain  Him 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being."  * 

*  On  the  relation  of  man  to  God  and  in  what  sense  wo  know  God 
and  eternal  life,  compare: 

Haldane:  The  Reign  of  Relativity,  p.  381-416. 
C.  C.  J.  Webb:  God  and  Personality,  p.  151f. 
Pringle-Pattison:  The  idea  of  God,  p.  256-296. 


NOTES  AND  REFERENCES 

1.  Wundt:  Ethics.     Introduction. 

2.  Tiele:  Science  of  Religion.     II.  p.  233. 

3.  King :  Development  of  Religion,    p.  43. 

4.  Fichte:  Vocation  of  Man.     Bk.  III.  4. 

5.  Spinoza:  Ethics:  III.     Props.  VI,  VII,  IX. 

6.  Wundt:  Outlines    of    Psychology.     Sees.    22,    23.     Judd: 
Psychology,     p.     81-93.      Stumpf:     Leib     und     Seele.     p.     18f. 
Lickley:  The  Nervous  System,     p.  83f.     In  order  to  avoid  more 
ultimate  problems,  we  may,  with  Wundt,  regard  the  relation  of 
conscious   and  neural   processes   as  an   "empirical   psycho-phys- 
ical parallelism"   between  factors  in  the  same  unity   of  expe- 
rience which  may  be  treated  in  two  ways,  one  mediate  inves- 
tigating empirical  objects  in  their  mutual  causal  relations,  and 
the  other  immediate  treating  the  same  objectives  in  direct  rela- 
tion to  the  knowing  evaluating  subject  and  in  their  relation  to 
the  other  contents  of  experience.     For  example,  physical  pro- 
cesses known   as  vibrations  of  the  "external  world,"   which  is 
objective  within  the  unity  of  experience,  are  responded  to   in 
different  color  sensations  with  varying  affective  attitudes. 

7.  Judd:   Psychology,     p.   33f.     Angell,   Psychology,     p.   48. 

8.  Lickley:  The  Nervous  System.     Ch.  II. 

9.  Dewey:  How  We  Think.     116f. 

10.  Angell:  Psychology,     p.  51. 

11.  Ibid. :  p.  51. 

12.  Burbank:  Century    Magazine.     Vol.    LXXIII.    p.    127. 
Art.     The  Training  of  the  Human  Plant.     Mill:  Utilitarianism: 
Ch.  II,  on  the  trustworthiness  of  human  nature  in  its  devel- 
opment under  proper  conditions.     Stout:  Analytic  Psychology. 
I.  33-35  calls  attention  to  the  need  of  caution  in  view  of  our 
ignorance   of  what  really  takes  place  in  the  neurones  in  the 
simplest  sensations. 

13.  Angell:  Psychology,     p.   27.     Judd:  Psychology,     p.  27. 
Lickley:  The  Nervous  System.     Ch.  II. 

14.  Goddard:  The  Feeble-Minded.     p.  4f. 

15.  Yerkes:  Psychology,    p.  224. 

16.  Spinoza :  Ethics.     II.     Prop.  13.     Aristotle :  Ethics.  II.  1. 

17.  H.  Goddard:  The  Feeble-Minded.     p.  2  and  573. 

18.  Besides  the  theory  of  the  relation  of  the  affects  to  the 

231 


232  MOEAL    LIFE   AND    RELIGION 

organism  presented,  there  are,  for  example,  Marshall's  view 
that  the  affect  is  pleasurable  when  energy  is  in  excess  of  demand, 
unpleasurable  when  it  is  less,  and  Stout's  conception  that  pleas- 
ure marks  the  relation  of  psycho-physical  processes  to  the  end 
of  well-being.  It  also  seems  to  follow  from  the  functional 
nature  of  consciousness  as  supplementing  and  directing  primary 
activities  so  as  to  secure  the  attainment  of  ends  promoting  the 
life  of  the  subject  that  consciousness  should  experience  just 
such  a  sign  as  pleasurable  or  unpleasurable  feeling  to  serve  as 
guide  to  action. 

19.  Dewey:  How  We  Think,     p.  109f. 

20.  Dewey:  The  Study  of  Ethics,     p.  14f. 

21.  A.  E.  Taylor:  The  Problem  of  Conduct.     Ch.  III. 

22.  Dewey:  The  Study  of  Ethics,    p.  16,  17.     Green:  Pro- 
legomena to  Ethics.     Sees.  91-96;  154.     Palmer:  The  Nature  of 
Goodness.     Ch.  VIII. 

23.  Angell:    Psychology:    Ch.    IV.     Judd:    Psychology.     Ch. 
Attention.     Wundt:  Outlines   of   Psychology.     Sec.   15.     Stout: 
Analytic  Psychology.     I.     122f.     Titchener:     The  Psychology  of 
Feeling  and  Attention.     Lects.  V,  VI. 

24.  Wright:  Phil.     Review.     XXIV.     165f.     "Evolution     of 
Values  from  Instincts." 

25.  Stout:  Analytic  Psychology.     II.     84f. 

26.  Herbert   Spencer:  Ethics.     Sec.    29.     Miinsterberg:     Ur- 
sprung  der  Sittlichkeit.     Ch.  II.     Shand:  Foundations  of  Char- 
acter,    p.  172. 

27.  Wundt:  Psychology,  Sees.  14,  15;  Ethics,  I.  p.  6-10. 
Jastrow:  Character  and  Temperament,  p.  59. 

28.  Titchener :  Psychology  of  Feeling  and  Attention,    p.  289- 
293. 

29.  Rashdall:  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil.     I.     106f. 

30.  Wundt:  Outlines  of  Psychology.     3rd  Ed.  p.  207.     The 
entire  section  is  important. 

31.  Wundt:  Outlines  of  Psychology,     p.  211f. 

32.  Stout:  Manual    of    Psychology.     Bk.    IV.     Ch.    IX.     p. 
562. 

33.  Green:  Prolegomena  to  Ethics.     Sec.  85. 

34.  A.  E.  Taylor:  The  Problem  of  Conduct.     81,  168. 

35.  Watson:  The    Interpretation    of    Religious    Experience. 
II.     281f. 

36.  Watson:  Selections  from  Kant.     250,  253. 

37.  Aristotle:  Ethics.     Bk.  III.     Ch.  V. 

38.  Plato :  Republic.     Bk.  IV.     Par.  421. 

39.  Wright:  Philosophical    Review.     XXIV.     p.    171.     "Ev- 
olution of  Value  from  Instincts." 


NOTES    AND    REFERENCES  233 

40.  H.  Sidgwick:  Methods  of  Ethics,     p.  383. 

41.  Rogers:  History  of  Ethics,     p.  189. 

42.  Muirhead :     Elements  of  Ethics,     p.  74. 

43.  This  view  of  the  inseparable  yet  varying  relation  of  the 
feeling  and   cognitive   elements   in   conscience   forbids  that   the 
essentials  of  the  moral  consciousness  should  be  found  in  feeling 
and   emotion   primarily,   as   with    Shand   and   Westermarck,   or 
that,    with    Rashdall   following   the   Kantian    order,   we    should 
assign  supremacy  to  the  a  priori  intellectual  process  in  order  to 
escape  subjectivism.     The  inseparable  relation  of  feeling,  emo- 
tion,  and   intellection   in   conscience   is   practically   adopted   by 
Shand  and   Westermarck  as  well  as  by   Rashdall  who   attacks 
their    supposed     foundation     of    morality    in     mere    emotion. 
Compare:  W.  K.  Knight:  Philosophical  Review.     XXV.     "Con- 
science as  Reason  and  Emotion." 

44.  Wundt:  Outlines  of  Psychology.     3rd  Ed.     243. 

45.  G.   W.    Crile:  Man— An   Adaptive   Mechanism.     Ch.    II. 
p.  44f. 

46.  Is  not  this  inability  fully  to   grasp   the  conditions   op- 
erative in  our  volitions  the  basis  of  Green's  conception  of  the 
act   of  will   as  timeless   and   hence  identical   with   the   timeless 
Divine  Will?     "The  act  of  adoption    (of  a  represented  object 
or  end)   ...  is  not  in  time  in  the  sense  of  being  an  event  deter- 
mined by  previous  events;  but  its  product  is  a  further  step  in 
that  order  of  becoming  which  we  call  the  formation  of  a  char- 
acter, in  the  growth  of  some  habit  of  will."     Prol.  to  Ethics, 
sec.    101.     Is   it   not    also  the    basis   of    Bergson's    attempt    to 
preserve  the  reality   of  time   as   experienced  duration,   a   qual- 
itative multiplicity  in  which  successive  states  interpenetrate,  but 
at  the  cost  of  rejecting  teleology  in  the  evolution  of  the  self 
which  is  supposed  to  choose  its  course  "even  against  every  rea- 
son"   (see  below,  sec.  27)   whereas  the  view  we  are  presenting 
finds  the  reality  of  the  self  in  the  increasingly  definite  realization 
of  ends,  progressively  unifying  the  self,  and  requiring  the  reality 
of  time  as  involved  in  the  experienced  fulfillment  of  these  ends? 
If  the  self  is  a  process  of  evolution  at  all,  it  can  only  be  relative 
to  an  end  for  only  "a  process  relative  to  an  end  can  be  a  process 
of  development"  as  Green  himself  says  (Pro.  to  Ethics,  sec.  189), 
who  should  have  seen  that  these  ends,  being  progressively  defined 
by  the  self,  are  conditioned  in  their  selection  by  its  life-history, 
requiring  the  reality  of  time  in  their  choice  and  fulfillment. 

47.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     p.  55-56. 

48.  James:  Psychology.     II.     536f.     Miinsterberg.     Psychol- 
ogy and  Life.     p.  7. 

49.  Dewey  and  Tufts:  Ethics,    p.  323f. 


234  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

50.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     p.  38. 

51.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     p.  10. 

52.  J.     McK.     Stewart:  Critical     Exposition    of     Bergson's 
Philosophy,     p.   247.     Bergson:  Time  and  Free- Will.    p.   169f. 

53.  Wundt:  Ethics.     I.     p.  23f. 

54.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     p.  36f. 

55.  James:  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,     p.  73. 

56.  James  Ten  Broeke:  A  Constructive  Basis  for  Theology. 
254-5. 

57.  Fraser :  Philosophy  of  Theism.     2nd  series.     Leets.     I.  V. 

58.  Watson:  Selections  from  Kant.     p.  241;  290-291. 

59.  Watson:  Selections  from  Kant.     p.  249.     Kant's  Theory 
of  Morals:  Abbott  Trans.     17-20. 

60.  E.  Caird:  Evolution  of  Theology  in  the  Greek  Thinkers. 
II.     122f. 

61.  Dewey:  Outline    Study    of    Ethics,     p.    5.    Dewey    and 
Tufts:  Ethics.     334. 

62.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     p.  65. 

63.  James:  The  Will  to  Believe.     216.     Coe:  Psychology  of 
Religion.     Chs.  IX,  XL 

64.  Palmer:  The  Field  of  Ethics.     116f. 

65.  Compare  the   development  of   Hegel's  categories  in  the 
Logic:  form  and  matter,  sec.   126;  whole  and  parts,  sec.  135; 
means  and  end,  sec.  206 ;  leading  to  the  Idea  expressing  itself  in 
Life,  Cognition  and  Will,  in  short,  in  self-conscious  spirit  re- 
alizing the  good,  sec.  213f. 

66.  Paulsen:  System  of  Ethics.     373f. 

67.  Emerson :  Essay  on  Illusions. 

68.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     p.  83f. 

69.  F.  H.  Bradley:  Appearance  and  Reality,     p.  436. 

70.  Dewey  and  Tufts:  Ethics,     p.  339-352. 

71.  Bakewell:  Source-Book  in  Ancient  Philosophy,     p.  60. 

72.  A.  K.  Rogers :  Phil.  Review.     XXV.     "Reason  and  Feel- 
ing in   Ethics."     p.   163.     Also:  C.   D.   Broad:  Inter.   Jour,   of 
Ethics:  XXVI.     p.  377f.     "On  the  Function  of  False  Hypoth- 
eses in  Ethics." 

73.  Westermarck:  Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Ideas. 
I.     p.  20. 

74.  Ladd:  Philosophy  of  Conduct,     p.  214. 

75.  Dewey  and  Tufts:  Ethics,     p.  401. 

76.  Dewey  and  Tufts:  Ethics,     p.  399-423. 

77.  Palmer:  The  Nature  of  Goodness,     p.  165. 

78.  Paulsen:  System  of  Ethics.     379-381. 

79.  Palmer:  The  Nature  of  Goodness,     p.  153f. 

80.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.    p.  27,  28. 


NOTES   AND    REFERENCES  235 

81.  Wundt:  Ethics.     III.     lOlf.     Paulsen:  System    of    Eth- 
ics.    338.     G.  H.  Palmer :  Altruismi     p.  9,  and  Ch.  V. 

82.  Paulsen:  System  of  Ethics,     p.  389. 

83.  Palmer:  The  Nature  of  Goodness,     p.  176. 

84.  Paulsen:  System  of  Ethics.     393.     Wundt:  Ethics.     III. 
152f. 

85.  Herbert  Spencer:  Ethics.     Preface  to  Ethics. 

86.  H.     H.     Scullard:  Hibbert     Journal.     Jan.     1917.    Art. 
"Originality  and  Finality  of  Christian  Ethics." 

87.  Lotze:  Microcosmus.     I.     250. 

88.  Bergson:  Matter  and  Memory,     p.  44,  295. 

89.  James:  Psychology.     I.     294. 

90.  Green :  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  sec.  154.     Fraser :  Golden 
Bough.     Part  IV,     Bk.  Ill,  Ch.  XI.     "Mother  Kin  and  Mother- 
Goddesses." 

91.  Hobbes:  Leviathan.     I.     Ch.  XIII. 

92.  Parkman:  The     Jesuits.     Sumner.  Folkways.     Ch.      XI. 
"Social  Codes." 

93.  W.  H.  Smith :  All  the  Children  of  All  the  People.     Mac- 
millan  Co.     1912.     A  most  excellent  treatment  of  the  subject. 

94.  Dewey     and     Tufts:  Ethics,     p.     441.     Wundt:  Ethics. 
III.     p.  151. 

95.  Hobbes:    Leviathan.     Chs.    13,    14.     Green:    Works.     II. 
366f. 

96.  Bosanquet:  Philosophy   of  the   State,     p.    71.     Spencer: 
Man  vs.  State.     88f. 

97.  Wundt:  Ethics.     I.     134-139,  177. 

98.  Plato :  Republic.     Bk.  II.     Par.  372.     Bk.  IV.     Par.  433. 

99.  Bosanquet :  Philosophy  of  the  State,     p.  35. 

100.  Cooley:  Social  Organization,     p.  21. 

101.  Kant:  Critique    of    Pure     Reason.     Dialectic.     Bk.     I. 
Sec.  I. 

102.  Lotze:     Microcosmus.     II.     508. 

103.  Ibid. :  p.  512,  514. 

104.  Ibid. :  Bk.  VIII.     Ch.  V. 

105.  Bosanquet:  Phil,     of     State,     p.     89f.     Green:  Works. 
II.     386f. 

106.  Bosanquet:  Philosophy  of  the  State,     p.  321. 

107.  Nietzsche:  Beyond  Good  and  Evil.     p.  192-196.     Trans. 
Dewey  and  Tufts:  Ethics,     p.  447. 

108.  Ellsworth    Faris :  Inter.    Jour,    of    Ethics.     XXV.     p. 
54.     "Origin  of  Punishment." 

109.  Ponsonby:  Inter.  Jour,  of  Ethics.    XXV.    p.  143.    "In- 
ternational Morality."    Also  p.  317.    Burns:  Moral  Effects  of 
Peace  and  War." 


236  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

110.  Cooley:  Social  Organization,    p.  53-56. 

111.  Ibid. :  p.  15,  17. 

(L12.     Bosanquet:  Philosophy  of  the  State,     p.  223-227. 

113.  S.    G.    Smith:  Inter.    Jour,    of    Ethics.     XXVI.     "The 
Rights  of  Criminals." 

114.  Delisle  Burns:  Inter.  Jour,  of  Ethics.     XXVI.     "When 
Peace  Breaks  Out." 

115.  Hegel:  Philosophy  of  Right.     Sees.  257,  261,  274,  436. 

116.  Lotze :  Microcosmus.    II.    p.  533,  549f .    Trans.  Scribner. 

117.  Bertrand  Russell:  Inter.  Jour.  Ethics.     XXVI.     p.   26. 
"The  War  and  Non-resistance." 

118.  Dewey:  Inter.  Jour.  Ethics.    XXVI.    Art.    "Progress." 

119.  W.  M.  Salter:  Inter.  Jour.  Ethics.    XXVII.    "Nietzsche 
and  the  War."     Also  "Nietzsche  the  Thinker." 

120.  Goddard:  The  Feeble-Minded.     p.  533-590. 

121.  Nietzsche:   Beyond   Good  and  Evil.     Tr.     227f. 

122.  James:  Psychology.     I.     Ch.    V.     Hodgson:  Metaphys- 
ics of  Experience.     IV.     p.  19,  223. 

123.  Jacques  Loeb:  Popular  Science  Monthly.     Jan.     1912. 

124.  Hibbert   Journal.     XIV.     550f.;    799f . :    Discussions  by 
Hugh  Elliot:  Mercier:  286.     Carr,  Lodge,  Hyslop,  XV.     150. 

125.  G.  W.  Crile:  Man — An  Adaptive  Mechanism,     pp.  18- 
19;  47,  53,  Ch.  V.     220f. 

126.  Judd:  Psychology,     p.    63.    Wundt:  Outlines    of    Psy- 
chology.    Sees.  5 :  10 ;  22,  10. 

127.  Ebbinghaus:  Psychology.     Trans.     46.     Grunziige     der 
Psychologie,  sec.  4.     Mill:  Logic.     Bk.  III.     Ch.  V.     10. 

128.  Ebbinghaus:  Psychology,    p.  11  19.    Psychologie.     Sec. 
4.     Stout:  Analytic  Psychology.     I.     8-35. 

129.  Wundt:  Ethics.     Part  III.     Ch.  I.     3.     (d).     p.  44. 

130.  Watson:  Interpretations   of   Religious   Experience.    II. 
185-7. 

131.  McTaggart :  Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectic :  p.  98-99. 

132.  Watson:  Interpretations  of  Religious  Experience.    II. 
p.  154,  157. 

133.  Hoffdinsr:  Philosophy  of  Religion. 

134.  Kant:  Critique  of  Judgment.     Pt.     II.     Sees.  70,  77. 

135.  Cunningham:  The  Philosophy  of  Bergson.     p.  165-166. 
Watson :  The  Interpretation  of  Religious  Experience.     II.    162- 
177. 

136.  See,    for   example;    Beyond    Good    and    Evil:  p.    118: 
"Morals  as  timidity";  "fear  the  mother  of  morals,"  128;  "The 
democratic    movement  ...  a    degenerating    form    of    political 
organization  equivalent  to  a  degenerating,  a  waning  type  of  man, 
as  involving  his  mediocrising  and  depreciation"  .  .  .  "The  dem- 


NOTES    AND    REFERENCES  237 

ocratic  movement  as  the  inheritance  of  the  Christian  movement," 
"herding  animal  morality,"  (127,  128) ;  "slave-morality"  which 
rests  upon  fear  of  the  strong  and  is  the  seat  of  the  distinction 
of  "good  and  evil"  beyond  which  is  "master-morality"  with  its 
distinction  of  "good  and  bad"  equivalent  to  "noble"  and  "des- 
picable" p.  227. 

137.  Indebtedness   is   acknowledged  to:  W.   M.    Salterns   ex- 
cellent  papers   on   Nietzsche  as   follows:  Inter.   Jour.    Ethics: 
XXV.  Pages  226,  372f.,  with  valuable  notes  and  bibliography; 
ibid. :  XXVII.     p.  357.     "Nietzsche  and  the  War."     Also  Paul- 
sen:  System   of  Ethics.     150f.     Eucken:  The   Problem   of   Hu- 
man Life.     559-564.     Watson:  The  Interpretations  of  Religious 
Experience.     II.     271f. 

138.  Hartmann:  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious.     III.     125- 
137. 

139.  James:  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience.     127-188. 

140.  Green:  Prolegomena  to  Ethics.     Sec.  85. 

141.  Coe:  Psychology  of  Religion,     p.  70. 

142.  Watson :  Selections  from  Kant.     140. 

143.  Stout:  Analytic  Psychology.     Bk.     II.     Ch.  VII. 

144.  Coe :  Psychology  of  Religion,     p.  74f . 

145.  Ladd :  Philosophy  of  Religion.    I.     136. 

146.  Waitz:  Anthropologie     der     Naturvolker.     I.     p.     340, 
quoted    by     Ladd:  Philosophy     of    Religion.     I.     136.     King: 
Development  of  Religion,     p.  43.     Fraser :  Golden  Bough.     Part 
I.     Vol.  I.     Ch.  VII.     Instead  of  attempting  to  go  back  histor- 
ically to   a  primitive  state,  Wundt  holds  that  the  pre-historic 
man  did  not  differ  essentially  from  the  present  day  savage  and 
that  by  psychological  interpretation  of  the  data  furnished  by 
ethnology  we  may  arrive  at  the  stage  of  culture  characterizing 
primitive  life  in  accordance  with  the  principle  that  "a  culture 
would  be   absolutely  primitive  if   no   antecedent   mental   devel- 
opment  whatsoever   could   be    presupposed.     Such    an    absolute 
concept  can  never  be  realized  in  experience,  here  any  more  than 
elsewhere.     We  shall  therefore,  call  that  man  primitive  in  the 
relative   sense   of  the  word — our   only  remaining   alternative — 
whose  culture   approximates  most  nearly  to  the  lowest  mental 
achievements  conceivable  within  the  limits  of  universal  human 
characteristics.     The  most  convenient  measure  of  these  achieve- 
ments ...  is  that  afforded  by  external  culture,  as  expressed  in 
dress,  habitation  and  food,  in  self-made  implements,  weapons  and 
other  products  serving  to  satisfy  the  most  urgent  needs  of  life." 
These  on  examination   show  that  the  relatively  primitive  man 
has  already  the  beginnings  of  culture  and  that  these  elementary 
acquisitions  differentiate  him  from  the  animal;  also  that  within 


238  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

the  narrow  sphere  that  constitutes  his  world,  the  intelligence  of 
primitive  man  is  not  inferior  to  that  of  cultural  man.  There 
may,  of  course,  have  been  a  time,  inaccessible  to  us,  when  man 
occupied  a  lower  intellectual  level  and  approximated  more  nearly 
the  animal  state.  Wundt:  Folk-Psychology,  p.  20-21,  32-33, 
113-114. 

The  moral  condition  of  primitive  man  is  better  called  negative 
or  merely  innocent  -  being  frank  and  honest  because  of  limited 
wants  and  lack  of  incentive  to  immoral  acts.  But  when  hard 
pressed  by  tribes  of  another  culture,  he  possesses  no  moral 
rules  or  established  principles.  If,  as  Wundt  holds,  "religion 
itself  begins  with  the  belief  in  gods"  and  the  god-idea  has  been 
produced  by  the  fusion  of  antecedent  ideas  of  demons  and  heroes 
primitive  man  must  be  thought  of  as  passing  through  stages  of 
development  which  are  preconditions  of  the  rise  of  religion  as 
belief  in  gods.  Everything  depends  here  upon  the  definition  of 
religion  and  morality  whether  they  are  separate  in  their  origin 
or  finally  identical. 

147.  'McDougal:  Social     psychology.     313f.     Wundt:  Ethics. 
I.     p.  31f. 

148.  Bradley:  Appearance  and  Reality.     438f. 
Sidgwick:  Methods  of  Ethics.     501-506. 
Taylor:   Problem  of   Conduct.     Ch.  VIII. 

149.  Watson:  Interpretation    of    Religious    Experience.     II. 
122. 

150.  A.   Reville:   Les  religions   des  non-civilises :   quoted  by 
Ladd :  Philosophy  of  Religion.     I.     135f . 

151.  It  may  be  noted  that  according  to  Wundt  there  are  no 
peoples  without   certain   conceptions  that   may  be  regarded    as 
precursors   of   the    later   god-ideas    such    as    ideas    of    demons, 
fetishes,  animal  or  human  ancestors.     The  idea  of  a  god  develops 
from  the  fusion  of  the  ideas  of  the  demon  and  the  hero  whereby 
the  god  acquires  the  power  of  the  demon  and  the  personal  char- 
acteristics   of    the    hero.     (Wundt:  Folk-Psychology,    p.    361f). 
In    "fetish-worship,"   which   seems   to   be    a   phase   of   religious 
phenomena    unique    in    character    difficult    to    understand,    any 
object  may  be  reverenced,  not  because  of  its  intrinsic  quality 
but  because  it  is  regarded  as  embodying  a  spirit  which  may  be 
used   to   accomplish   the   worshiper's   desires.     If   these   change, 
or  the  enterprise   does  not  prosper,  the   worshiper  may  either 
cast  the  deity  aside  as  useless,  or  even  beat  it  to  make  it  serve 
him  Ifetter.     It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  it  is  the 
spirit  supposed  to  be  connected  with  the  object  that  is  worshiped. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  understand  whence  "Fetishism"  has  the  idea 
of  a  god  that  is  supernatural  yet  dwells  temporarily  in  a  stick 


NOTES    AND    REFERENCES  239 

or  a  stone  and  is  capable  of  working  wonders.  It  is  not  clear 
how  such  a  belief  could  arise  from  any  experience  of  the  objects 
themselves,  and,  for  this  reason,  it  has  been  supposed  that  the 
savage  gained  the  idea  of  a  spirit  or  god  from  some  other  source 
and  applied  it  to  the  visible  object  to  render  the  god  more  acces- 
sible and  serviceable.  This  view  would  make  "fetishism  not  so 
much  the  lowest  as  a  degraded  form  of  religion" — a  view  held 
by  Max  Miiller.  Wundt,  however,  rejects  the  theory  of  degen- 
eration from  earlier  or  contemporary  religious  cults  of  a  higher 
character  and  holds  that  fetish  ideas  go  far  back  into  the  period 
of  soul  and  demon  beliefs,  finally  gaining  a  relative  independence 
(Folk-Psychology,  p.  255f.). 

152.  Bosanquet:  Essentials  of  Logic,     p.  33. 

153.  Hoffding:  Philosophy  of  Religion,     p.  10-12. 

154.  Coe :  Psychology  of  Religion.     20,  70,  74. 

155.  Tiele:  Science  of  Religion.     II.     233. 

156.  Leuba:  quoted  by  James:  Varieties  of  Religious  Expe- 
rience.    506-508. 

157.  James:  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience.     508. 

158.  Ladd :  Philosophy  of  Religion.     I.     164. 

159.  Bergson:  Creative  Evolution,     p.  306. 

160.  W.    N.     Rice:  "Degree    of    Probability    of     Scientific 
Beliefs"  in  New  Englander  and  Yale  Review.     Jan.  1891. 

Fraser:  Philosophy  of  Theism,  2nd  series.     Ch.  I. 

161.  Lotze:  Microcosmus.     Bk.  VI.     Ch.  V.    p.  107f. 

162.  Ibid. :  II.  p.  207. 

163.  Fichte :  Vocation  of  Man.     Bk.  III.     Sec.  III. 

164.  Lotze:  Microcosmus.     II.     p.  116. 

165.  Bakewell:  Source-Book  in  Ancient-Philosophy,     p.   8. 

166.  Taylor:  The  Problem  of  Conduct.     426f. 

167.  Westermarck:  Origin  and  Development  of  Moral  Ideas. 
II.     667. 

168.  McDougal:  Social  Psychology,     p.  302. 

169.  Coe :  Psychology  of  Religion.     Ch.  VI. 

170.  Royce:  The   World    and   the   Individual.     II.     Ch.    IV. 
That  the  development  of  the  conception  of  God  embodies  that 
of  a  people  is  well  shown  by  Wundt  in  his  Folk-psychology,  p. 
351f.     According  to  Wundt  the  idea  of  god  or  gods  is  a  fusion 
of  the  ideas  of  demon  and  hero  both  having  a  long  history.     It 
was  believed  that  the  soul  leaves  the  corpse  in  the  form  of  a 
demon  possessed  of  threatening  sometimes  of  beneficent  powers 
but  impersonal,   really  embodiments   of  fears   and  hopes.     The 
heroic  element  of  the  idea  of  God  begins  to  assert  itself  as  soon 
as  the  hero  appears.     "The  god  is  at  once  hero  and  demon ;  since, 
however,   the   demoniacal   element   in   him   magnifies   his    heroic 


240  MORAL    LIFE    AND    RELIGION 

attributes  into  the  superhuman,  and  since  the  personal  character 
which  he  borrows  from  the  hero  supersedes  the  indefinite  and 
impersonal  nature  of  the  demon,  he  is  exalted  at  once  above 
both;  the  god  himself  is  neither  hero  nor  demon  because  he 
combines  in  himself  the  attributes  of  both,  in  an  ideally  mag- 
nified form"  (p.  369).  Hence  the  god  ideas  are  neither  of  a 
sudden  origin  nor  unchangeable  but  undergo  a  gradual  devel- 
opment determined  by  the  relation  of  the  demon  and  hero 
elements  to  each  other.  The  earliest  god-ideas  are  demoniacal, 
personal  characteristics  are  few  while  magical  features  are  all 
the  more  prominent.  Then  the  heroic  with  the  personal  comes 
to  the  fore.  Wundt  also  holds  that  a  pure  monotheistic  belief 
probably  never  existed  among  any  people,  not  even  in  Israel. 
There  are  other  gods.  It  is  philosophy  alone  which  exhibits  an 
absolute  monotheism.  Then  comes  the  problem  whether  the 
absolute  of  philosophy  can  properly  be  regarded  as  Personality 
and  how  related  to  finite  personalities.  It  seems  to  me  most 
satisfactory  despite  all  objections  to  regard  the  Absolute  Philo- 
sophically as  Personality  inclusive  of  finite  or  partial  personal- 
ities, a  conception  which  I  believe  the  Christian  religion  confirms 
and  exalts.  This  view  is  developed  in  what  follows. 

171.  Comte:  "Catechism  of  the  Positive  Religion." 

172.  Burnet :  Greek  Philosophy.     I.     Sees.  129  and  176. 

173.  Watson:  Interpretation    of    Religious    Experience.    II. 
122. 

174.  Watson:  Selections   from    Kant.     285.     Abbot's    Trans. 
Theory  of  Morals.     226. 

175.  Shadworth  Hodgson:  Metaphysics  of  Experience.     IV. 
216-221. 

176.  Martineau:  Study  of  Religion:  Introduction. 

177.  Menzies:  History  of  Religion.     235-239;  409f. 

178.  Wernle:  Beginnings  of  Christianity.     II.     p.  327. 

179.  Ladd:  Philosophy     of     Conduct.     419f.     Paulsen:  Sys- 
tem of  Ethics.     Ch.  II.     See  also  above  note  170. 

180.  Coe:  Psychology  of  Religion.     Ch.  VI,  XVIII. 

181.  Paulsen :  System  of  Ethics.     Ch.  II. 

182.  R.  L.  Stevenson:  Works.     VI.     236. 

183.  Hegel:  Ency.     Sec.  212;  quoted  by  McTaggart:  Studies 
in  Hegelian  Dialectic,     p.  3. 

184.  Hartmann :  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious.     II.     243. 

185.  Hartmann:  Die  Religion  des  Geistes.     Pages:  209,  210, 
227,  231,  235,  257,  258. 

186.  Ladd:  Philosophy  of  Religion.     II.    483. 

187.  Royce:  The  World  and  the  Individual.    II.    148. 


KOTES   ATTD    REFERENCES  241 

188.  Watson:  Interpretation    of    Religious    Experience.    II. 
276.     Ladd:  Philosophy  of  Religion.     II.     493. 

189.  Hodgson:  Metaphysics  of  Experience.     IV.     206,  209. 

190.  Bosanquet:  Principle    of   Individuality    and   Value,     p. 
307,  342.     Hoffding:  Philosophy  of  Religion,     p.  10-12. 

191.  D.    C.    Mclntosh:  The    Problem    of    Knowledge.     408, 
quoting  A.  0.  Lovejoy :  Pragmatism  and  its  critics,     p.  1. 

192.  James:  The  Will  to  Believe,     p.  181.     Also,  Pragmat- 
ism, and,  The  Pluralistic  Universe. 

193.  D.  C.  Mclntosh:  The  Problem  of  Knowledge,     p.  311, 
321f. 

194.  Hoffding:  Philosophy  of  Religion,     p.  12. 

195.  Coe:  Psychology  of  Religion.     Ch.  XIV. 

196.  Leibnitz:  Monadology:  sees.  53-55. 

197.  Lotze:  Metaphysics.     Sec.  307. 

198.  Hegel:  Logic.     Sec.  142. 

199.  James:  Some  Problems  of  Philosophy,     p.  73. 

200.  Royce:  The  World  and  the  Individual.     I.     323. 

201.  Hegel:  Logic.     Sec.  135. 

202.  Green:  Prolegomena  to  Ethics.     Sec.  189. 

203.  Royce:  The  World  and  the  Individual.     II.     430,  444- 
445. 

204.  Ten    Broeke:  A    Constructive   Basis   for    Theology,    p. 
233f.     Ritschl:   Justification   and   Reconciliation,   p.   9-10;    200- 

212.     Theologie  und  Metaphysik.     p.  7-15,  37-43. 


INDEX 


Altruism,  84f,  87,  142. 

Ames,  E.  S.,  195. 

Anarchy,  108. 

Aphasia,  18. 

Apology,  47. 

Approval,  30f,  37,  45f. 

Aristotle,  20,  41,  76,  89f,  92,  96f, 

150,  181,  221. 
Arnold,  M.,  158,  180. 
Attention,  23f. 
Autonomy  of  Will,  40. 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  13. 

Ballot,  114. 

Beautiful,  and  the  moral,  68f. 

Bentham,  108. 

Bergson,  14,  38,  56-58,  134,  200, 

216. 

Berkeley,   210. 
"Better,"  37. 
Binet,  Alfred,  21. 
Biological  concepts,  13. 
Bosanquet,  50,  52,   111,  208f. 
Bradley,  F.  H.,  158. 
Brotherly  love,  75,  90. 
Buddhistic  faith,  203. 
Bunyan's  Christian,  184. 
Burnet,  180. 

Caird,  Edward,  66,  69. 
Capacities,  16,  18,  39,  109f. 
Category,  15,  207f,  211f. 
Catholicism,  194. 
Character  and  Choice,  21,  30f. 
Choice,   35-40;    as   logical  issue, 

50f;  of  means,  68. 
Christ,  223f. 
Christian  doctrine,  199. 
Christianity,  139,  168,  174,  223f. 
Church,   and  morality,    194f. 
"Circumstances  alter  cases,"  64. 
Clarke,  Samuel,  44. 


242 


Coe,  G.  A.,  61,  86,  187. 
Comparison  and  Value,  26f,  42. 
Comte,  160,  180. 
Conative  Principle,   16f. 
Conduct,  36,  66. 
Conscience,  43,  44,  198. 
Consciousness,  degrees  of,  I7f. 
Conservation  of  energy,   129f. 
Conversion,  40. 
Creative  finalism,  135f. 
Crile,  G.  W.,  50,  127. 
Crime,  116f. 
Cudworth,  44. 
Cunningham,   G.  W.,   135f. 
Customs,  59,  106f. 

Darwin,  101. 

Death,  169. 

Decartes,  101. 

Decision,  as  logical  consequence, 

50. 

Deliberation,  40. 
Democritus,  76. 
Deterioration,  41. 
Dewey,  John,  123,  148. 
Duties,  70f. 

Ebbinghaus,  129. 
Egoism,  84f. 

Elimination  of  evil,  190f. 
Elliott,  Hugh,  127. 
Emerson,  71. 
Emotion,   15,   182. 
Eucken,  142. 

Faith,  90,  183,  195. 
Faith-cures,   128. 
Family,   101,   194. 
Feeble-minded,  20f,  54,  110,  124. 
Feeling-tone,  38f. 
Feelings,  30f,  44,  55. 
Fichte,  11,  174,  215. 


INDEX 


243 


Freedom,  5 If;  and  necessity,  52, 

103. 

French  peasant,  21. 
Freud,  S.,  16,  58. 
Friendships,  76,  89. 

God,  47,  66,  96,  164;  germinal 
concept  of,  184,  187,  188,  206, 
239f. 

Goddard,  H.,  20,  55,  124. 

Good,  39,  62;  highest,  39,  71,  96, 
134. 

Goodness  and  self-sacrifice,  84f. 

Gordon,  S.  D.,  137. 

"Great-nature  worship,"  159. 

Greeks,  67,  68,  80,  96. 

Green,  T.  H.,  12,  96. 

Habit,  21f,  63;  of  choice,  82, 
Haldane,  230. 
Hamlet,  220. 
Hartmann,  Ed.,  144,  201. 
Hegel,  61,  65,  113f,  208,  225. 
Heredity,  21. 

Hierarchy  of  ends,  93,  104,  133. 
"Hinder    hindrances,"    110,    117. 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  85,  104f,   114. 
Hodgson,  JShadworth,    126,    183, 

204. 

Hoffding,  H.,   132,   160,   208. 
Hugo,  Victor,  137. 
Hume,  David,   12,  43,   167. 
Hutcheson,  43. 
Huxley,  13. 

lago,  68,  91. 

"Ideality  of  the  finite,"   158. 
Ideals,  and  achievement,  144f. 
Ideo-motor,  187f. 
Immortality,  76,  174,  22  If. 
Individuality,  60,  76. 
Instinct,   14,  21,  86. 
Intuition,    43,    44,    48,    63,    101, 

210. 
Irons,  David,  15,  48. 

James,  W.,  163,  209,  218. 

Jastrow,  5. 

Jesus,  90;  joy  of,  93;   and  the 

Superman,  143. 
Justice,  75,  82. 


Kant,  5,  13,  40,  44,  57,  65,  66, 
71,  73,  89,  111,  157,  182,  225f, 
King,  I.,  156. 
Koran,  185. 

Ladd,  G.  T.,  163,  187. 
Law,  59f,  67. 
Leibnitz,  61,  215. 
Leonidas,  92. 
Leuba,  163. 
Life-ends,  26. 
Livy,  96. 
Locke,  112. 
Loeb,  J.,  127. 

Lotze,    61,     133,     171-173,     215, 
226f. 

McDougal,  W.,   14,  61. 

Macintosh,  D.  C.,  209f. 

MacTaggart,  130f. 

Martineau,  James,  184. 

Meaning,    22f. 

Mechanism    and    teleology,    126- 

136. 

Memory,  18f. 
Mental  power,   18f. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  12,  43,  48,  129. 
Milton,  68. 
Misologist,  8. 
Mohammedanism,   185f. 
Moral,   action,    lOf;    realism,   8; 

sense,  47;    situation,  36. 
Morality,  a  reaction,  2 If. 
Muirhead,  J.  H.,  44,  45. 
Munsterberg,  Hugo,  28,  133. 
Mutuality,  88. 
Mystic  union,  100,  168. 
Mysticism,  203. 

Natural  rights,  108f. 
Neo-Hegelianism,  206. 
Neo-Platonism,   203. 
Nietzsche,    124f,    138f. 
Nihilism,  moral,  70. 
"Notion,"  225. 

Obligation,  23,  65,  70f. 
Othello,  68,  91. 
"Ought-to-be,"   11,  27f. 

Palmer,  G.  H.,  87,  88. 


244 


INDEX 


Parmenides,  213. 

Partial  self,  72. 

Passion,  54. 

Paulsen,  70,  93,  189. 

Personality,  52,  83. 

Philosophy,  4;  and  religion,  4. 

Physico-chemical  theory,  126f. 

Plato,  41,  43,  75,  88,  96,  111, 
180,  213. 

Pragmatism,  209,  218. 

Pratt  J.  B.,  195. 

Prayer,  146;   of  Socrates,  97. 

Primitive  man,  103,  156,  171, 
237f. 

Pringle-Pattison,  230. 

Progress,  87,   102f. 

Providence,  132. 

Psychology,  6;  moral  and  reli- 
gious, 14;  of  age,  19f. 

Punishment,  117;  theories  of, 
117,  180. 

Rashdall,  H.,   16,  61. 
Rational  intuition,  49. 
Realism,  moral  and  religious,  8, 

9,   196f. 

"Realizing-sense,"    45f. 
Reason  as  value,  4 If. 
Recapitulation,  28. 
Reid,  Thomas,  209. 
Religion,  essence  of,  159f. 
Religious  reform,   189. 
R6ville,  159. 

Rights  and  obligations,  107f. 
Ritschl,  Albrecht,  226f. 
Romans,  112. 

Romanticism  and  Nietzsche,  142. 
Rousseau,  112;  and  Kant,  113. 
Royce,  J.,  222. 
Rudimentary,  moral,  23. 

Sacrifice,  84f,  92f. 

Salter,  W.  M.,  124. 

Salvation,   199f,  219f. 

Schopenhauer,  14,  50,  57,  84,  201. 

Sciences,  classification  of,   1. 

Self,  assertion,  92;  conscious- 
ness of,  59,  86;  reality  of,  100, 
214;  revelation  of,  50. 


Sense  of  duty,  74. 
Shaftesbury,  43. 
Shand,  13,  61. 
Sidgwick,  H.,  44. 
Sin,  68;  of  youth,  20. 
Smith,  Adam,  43. 
Social,    immediacy,    86;    institu- 
tions, 98;   self,  lOlf. 
Socrates,  39,  43,  45,  64. 
Spencer,  H.,  12,  28,  201. 
Spinoza,  14,  20,  64,  101. 
State,  function  of,   HOf. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  78,  97. 
Stoic,  96. 
Stout,  G.  F.,  58. 

Taylor,  A.  E.,  40,  176f. 
Theology,  203,  225. 
Theories  of  Knowledge,  8. 
Titchener,   32. 
Tracy,  F.,  195. 
"Transvaluation  of  values,"  138f. 

"Unfreedom,"  53f. 
Uniqueness  of  individuality,  60; 
of  duties,  76. 

Value,  18,  22,  26,  42;  and  com- 
parison, 49f;  a  category,  211. 

"Value-judgments,"  227f. 

Vengeance   rejected,   19 If. 

Vices,  10,  20. 

Vineland  Training  School,  105. 

Virtues,  10,  20,  59,  70,  79f ;  unity 
of,  82,  90. 

Vital  force,  128. 

Volition,  14;  its  forms,  30f. 

Waitz,  136. 

War,  117f. 

Watson,  John,  129,  131. 

Webb,  C.  C.  J.,  230. 

Westermark,  15f,  61. 

Will,  30f. 

Wundt,  W.,  34,  71,  129,  239. 

Xenophanes,  176. 
Zeno,  66. 


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